



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE THOUGHTLESS THOUGHTS 
OF CARISABEL 



BY 



ISA CARRINGTON CABELL 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Receivee 

OCT 1 1903 

Copyright Entry 

cuss <X XXc. No 

COPY B. 






Copyright, 1903, 

BY 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



Published September, 1903, 



i 

N 



N 



To 
S. L. W. 

and 
S. p. B. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The New Man, i 

II. The New Child, 17 

III. The Tell-Tale House, .... 27 

IV. Servants, .34 

V. The Visited and the Visitor, . . 46 

VI. Dinner Parties 59 

VII. Conversation, ^'j 

VIII. Mannerisms in Conversation, ... 80 

IX. Ignorance is Bliss 88 

X. The Motive of Travel, .... 96 

XI. Love's Catechism, ..... 106 

XII. Should Women Propose, . . . .117 

XIII. Do Men Propose, 128 

XIV. Should Men Marry, 140 

XV. Liking vs. Love, 149 

XVI. Love and Forty, 161 

XVII. One's Own, 177 

XVIII. One's Relations 188 

XIX. Friendship, 196 

XX. Advice, 214 

XXI. The Apology and the Woman Who 

Stood Between, 223 

XXII. Grievances, . . . . . . .236 

V 



vi 


Contents 




CHAPTER 




PAGE 


XXIII. 


Happiness, 


243 


XXIV. 


How Belinda Had the Grippe, . 


258 


XXV. 


The Cult of Being Busy, 


268 


XXVI. 


Nervous Prostration, . 


275 


XXVII. 


Pervading Personalities, 


289 


XXVIII. 


The New Etiquette, 


305 


XXIX. 


Original Sin, 


318 


XXX. 


Defunct Sins, . . . . . 


. 327 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

The author of this volume hurried off to Europe, 
without leaving a preface, and requested the pub- 
lishers to inform the reader ( for what purpose is not 
easy to imagine) that the book consists of '' the un- 
fashionable and passe opinions of a survivor of a past 
age," and to express her thanks for permission to 
print most of the articles, to the proprietors of the 
journal in which they originally appeared. 

The few readers who in this age have enough time 
(and would it do to add seriousness?) to read pref- 
atory matter of any kind, may wish, in addition, the 
usual explanation of the how and wherefore of the 
book. It was due, as many books are, to the instiga- 
tion of the publisher. If the fortuitous turn of the 
sentence arouse a suggestion that many books are 
due to the instigation of somebody else, there is not 
to be any quarrel. It came about thus : The first of 
the two individuals just indicated, on a lazy Sunday 
morning in 1902, in a Maryland country house, was 
reading the Baltimore Sim — a paper of more than 
local reputation for giving people both what they 
want and what they ought to have — when he hap- 
pened on an article signed " Carisabel," which 
was the first newspaper article that struck him 

vii 



viii Publishers' Note 

as worth booking since the never-to-be-forgotten 
day when he read for the first time one of Mr. 
Dooley's immortal papers on the Dreyfus case. 
He at once wrote to " Carisabel," as he wished he 
had done to Mr. Dooley. The lady responded with 
a very hesitating estimate of the merits of her work, 
and then the instigation became more active — ^with 
results now confidently submitted for the approval 
of the discriminating. 



THE THOUGHTLESS THOUGHTS 
OF CARISABEL 

I 
XTbe Bew /iDan 

WHEN Jane and I drew straws as to which 
should marry and which should live with 
the other, and I got the short straw, there was 
great ado as to which of the passionately enam- 
oured swains who spent the best part of their time 
prancing up and down on steeds with long flowing 
manes before our front gate, I should take. 

At last after endless disputes we settled on 
John, and, I may as well confess, if we do not 
like him we have ourselves to thank : if our monster 
does not suit us, not he is to blame, but the artist. 

*' The ladies Eleanor and Isabel were sitting, with 
Miss Dale, all three at work on their embroideries; 
he (Sir Willoughby) had only to look at Miss 
Eleanor. She arose, she looked at Miss Isabel, and 
rattled her chatelaine to account for her departure. 
After a decent interval Miss Isabel glided out. Such 
was the perfect discipline of the household." 

I read, I rub my eyes ; has Mr. Meredith with the 



2 The New Man 

equipments of genius crossed continents and seas 
with winged feet, and, slipping behind the parlour 
curtains, viewed our own Willoughby standing in 
the attitude of majesty before his fireplace, while 
under his gaze sit Jane, and Dash, and I, in our 
accustomary yapping position, waiting for a sign? 

And who, pray, is responsible for our attitude 
toward this large, unwieldy, unsmiling personage, 
with the best of hearts and the slowest of under- 
standing — who seldom speaks except to ask " Where 
have you hidden the morning paper," or '' Is dinner 
ready?" — whose contribution to the remark that 
the moon is made of green cheese would be : ^' Im- 
probable," and to an explosion of the centre table 
lamp, which would send Jane and me flying out of 
the window, ** Thus we see ! " 

As the Misses Eleanor and Isabel are responsible 
for the existence of the '' Egoist," so Jane and I are 
responsible for the Man about Our House. Neither 
of us is of the tribe of Judah, but we have been nour- 
ished in the rabbinical creed of the proper relation of 
the sexes. We had an idea, founded upon Old Testa- 
ment history, that Providence had discriminated, and 
endowed man with certain qualities he had denied 
women, and that it was only decent and proper to 
enter the superior presence, veiled and with salaams. 

Do you suppose when he first appeared on our 
stage, humble, shy, anxious to please, and much 
bewildered with the variety and brilliancy, if not 



The New Man 3 

profundity, of our talents, John could have made 
of himself the Turkish pacha that he is? Did you 
know John, your answer would be prompt, and you 
would use that rare and precious word that so seldom 
issues from your lips or any lips. You would say 
" No." 

Of a truth, but for a certain unalienable quality of 
common sense, inherited from a Puritan ancestor, 
and which the membership of two Women's clubs 
and a course of modern literature have not yet eradi- 
cated from my system, I should not have picked out 
John, but a fiery, passionate, reserved person, with 
whom to pass my days. 

Though never admitting for an instant the degrad- 
ing dictum of Owen Meredith's poem, " But then 
we women cannot change our lot," that picture of 
the young mother — ^^her child upon her knee," watch- 
ing his light breath come and go, thinking of one, 
Heaven help and pity me, who loved me and whom 
I loved long ago " — did, in a way have its influence. 
I knew it would be useful as a dramatic setting. Had 
I not seen her again and again in the pages of ro- 
mance, the throbbing, fiery, impulsive creature, 
chained to a clog? Had she not once come to me 
at night, in a long flowing teagown, and throwing 
herself at my feet, murmured, " If you only knew, 
but he — he — he would never, never understand " 

And yet that unalienable quality — common sense 
— told me that these were lies. It told me to take 



4 The New Man 

John, and since to one of my temperament, imagina- 
tion supplies the place of fact, I have fed my hungry 
heart by treating him as if he were a combination of 
Lord Byron and the Reverend Patrick Bronte, who, 
old-fashioned people who read biography will recol- 
lect, burned up the parlour rug when he became 
offended, and then " covered his wife's hand with 
hot tears." 

Jane's requirements were simpler. But then Jane 
drew the long straw. But first she gave this sound 
piece of advice. She said^ " Never tell him anything, 
and never ask his advice. When you do so, you put 
him in a false position. You endow him with a 
quality he never possessed, when you treat him as 
a reasonable being." As a brother-in-law, for Jane 
was afraid of robbers, all she asked was a large, 
able-bodied person who would inspire respect in a 
midnight marauder. 

" And the only way to make robbers afraid of 
John,'* she remarked with sisterly candour, after a 
short but intimate acquaintance with his serene, 
good-natured attitude toward his race, *' is to treat 
him as if we were afraid of him. Don't you recollect 
that Mrs. Bottome said that the way to be a King's 
daughter is to believe you are a King's daughter? " 

This, I speak with frankness, we have done for 
twenty-five years, and now, though not possessed 
with what I should call quick intuitions, John has 
learned to allude to this domicile, to which he only 



The New Man 5 

sustains a law relationship, as " my house " ; he 
chooses the bedroom curtains, or rather signifies 
what he will not have ; if the soup is cold, he makes 
a gesture of disgust; and once he threw out of the 
parlour window a little chair that broke under his 
weight. Among our minor discomforts is that of 
being compelled to choose the time when I convey 
unwelcome intelligence. If the plumbers must be 
called in, or cook is going, or the coal is out, I must 
seize the skirts of happy chance, and tell him so after 
he has eaten a satisfactory meal, or Jane takes it as 
a righteous punishment, because I was not provided 
with sops for an infuriated animal mentioned in the 
classics. 

And on cold, dark mornings, when one's con- 
science is awake, and it is too early to get up and 
put it to sleep with matutinal coffee; when one is 
going over one's iniquities, and '' making one's 
soul," one wonders did he take strict account, the 
recording angel, of the times and times when it has 
been necessary to invent clever speeches and tender 
speeches and wise speeches, and ascribe them to 
John, — John — who, wrapped in the garment of 
solemn and interesting reverie, is supposed to keep 
such revelations for the One. 

" As John says," — ah, familiar prelude ! — and 
then follows the concentrated wisdom, the facile wit, 
the sensitive mind of the poet, the dreamer, the sage. 
The fact that he says nothing foolish is of itself pre- 



6 The New Man 

sumptive evidence that, did he speak, his words were 
pregnant with wisdom. *' Nobody," the writer has 
often affirmed, under the impression which she 
shares with the Bellman in the *' Hunting of the 
Snark," that what you say three times is true, — '' no- 
body really knows John but me." Verily, as saith 
the proverb, nothing is more misleading than fact. 
But I do not admit that those who dwell in the house 
of bondage have not their compensations. When I 
have been urged to perform an uncongenial task 
placed upon me by society or the demands of charity, 
I have more than once said : "I would gladly do it, 
but John will not let me," which humble and reveal- 
ing phrase has softened toward me the heart of the 
soliciting committee itself, a heavy female of threat- 
ening mien. " John simply won't have them," has 
saved me from inviting relations to make our house 
their home when doing their fall shopping. And 
" You know John," has been even received with re- 
spect by my Aunt Sophia, a person in full possession 
of her faculties, and accustomed to be obeyed, and 
that with no silly talk about it. 

Not that I would have you suppose me capable 
of always placing John for my own purposes in a 
disagreeable light. Scarcely does a day pass that 
someone does not compare him to the stout Colonel 
whom the heroine of Mrs. Burnett's '' Through one 
Administration " found so inimical to her wedded 
bliss, and only yesterday I was congratulated on the 



The New Man 7 

beautiful soul that I have asserted loudly is tucked 
away under his imposing exterior. But I would let 
fall a single dark hint. 

The episode of the little chair cast out of the win- 
dow in an outburst of unseemly, but not unprovoked 
rage (for its fate had been threatened), compels us 
to admit that there are the makings of a tyrant in 
every man ; there is an incipient mogul in the tiniest 
Mr. Collins who ever bent his back in obsequious 
obedience to the orders of Lady Catherine De 
Bourgh. 

But they are not of their own construction ; vine- 
like characters, like Jane and me, are responsible for 
their existence. 

Now, reader, I hope you will not take a prejudice 
against this book because it has begun with a per- 
sonal confidence. Fear not that you are about to 
read an Amiel's *' Journal," or a " Story of my 
Heart." I should not dream of introducing you to 
John, but that his record contains the germ of a 
greater problem. It describes how the New Man 
was evolved. 

Thirty years ago, I am ready to affirm, there was 
no such person. The line between the sexes was 
'drawn with so heavy a hand that the dullest never 
mistook a man for a woman, or a woman for a man. 
Those beardless youths who played the part of Juliet 
and Perdita, did they impose upon the rustic audi- 
ence before whom they masqueraded? Was not 



8 The New Man 

Rosalind but the more the woman for her doublet 
and hose, and the masculine qualities of George Sand 
and George Eliot the louder insisted upon because 
the ladies Marian Evans and Aurore Dupin had 
feigned a right to them ? 

Old-fashioned persons like Jane and me, with no 
thought of harm, and a frightful disregard for con- 
sequences, made the New Man, by making such 
people as John ; and — such is the rapidity of growth 
of a malign influence — he has leaped from a pigmy 
into a giant. He who, if it had not been for us, 
would have been this moment sitting on his hands, 
fortified by the remark, " Why chairs ? We are very 
comfortable as we are,'* and drinking out of gourds, 
asserting between swallows, " Why glasses ? I de- 
test a fuss,'' he, because we would have him other 
than he was, and would fashion our own deity, has 
come to matching curtains and choosing the parlour 
furniture. He has opinions as to the relative quali- 
ties of a Dag'hestan and a Bokhara rug, and knows 
that one must hang pictures on a line with the be- 
holder's eye. 

And one of his most objectionable features is the 
tenacity with which he takes hold. 

A man does not adopt a cult, he accepts it as if it 
were a blood relation. As he is a creature of habit, 
a change in him is a revolution. Having usurped 
our prerogatives, he has almost dispensed with our 
services. People complain of the New Woman, and 



The New Man 9 

there is whimpering in the offices at Washington to 
the effect that she has all the clerkships, and the 
lawyers are in a state of mind lest she take their 
business, and doctors are legislating against her 
coming into the medical profession. But in justice's 
name, what can the poor thing do ? 

I myself have never seen the New Man engaged 
in darning stockings, though I have heard him re- 
peatedly declare how perfectly he could execute the 
task if he only had time. But the gracious sight of 
him arranging the draperies has been vouchsafed me, 
and I have seen him shiver when discordant colours 
met his eye. I have heard him talk of houses as he 
would talk of people, — as anti-sympatica, — and, 
like the architect Pugin of the Bishop's cope, declare 
it hard to believe in the final salvation of a lady who 
wore artificial grapes in her hat. 

And further, I have heard him giving directions 
about the length of the baby's stockings, and at his 
wife's table, inquiring whether the water had been 
boiled. I have seen him polishing old mahogany, 
and cleaning old brasses, and looking solemn when 
called in to decide whether a bit of embroidery was 
early Flemish or middle Spain. 

As a housewife, oozing information, the New 
Man is not as agreeable as is to be expected. 

The first requisite of happiness in the family is 
that the men go down town, quitting the house by 
9.30, and not returning before 7 p. M. 



lo The New Man 

Before the mischief-makers went to work, there 
were numberless wives whose habit it was to move 
from one quarter of the city to the other, their hus- 
bands receiving the first intimation of their change 
of residence by a note, left next door to the old 
address, telling them where to come for din- 
ner. 

But the New Man is a man of leisure. He does 
not go down town, and so he has ample opportunities 
to interest himself in matters " touching " him, as 
we say. The secret of the serenity of many a house- 
hold of the past was in the phrase, " He will never 
know, for he will never notice." 

I know one somewhat rare, but cherished specimen 
of fatherhood, who went so far as to ask a little boy 
whose features held something familiar : " And 
whose son are you, my man? " to receive the some- 
what bewildering reply, " Yours, Sir." 

This model of his sex left home so early and came 
back so late that he did not recognize the lad; 
his wife, — a good woman, — had showed the child his 
picture. But I don't suppose you could tell so pleas- 
ing an anecdote of a man or even move him, were 
he deaf, dumb, and paralytic, which is Jane's idea 
of a matrimonial prize, if he sat in the house all day, 
and could make signs indicating, "And what did 
you do that for?" You certainly couldn't sell his 
new overcoat to the old clo' man, or enter into an en- 
gagement with a book agent to supply you with a 



The New Man ii 

pianola to be paid for in weekly instalments ab- 
stracted out of the market money. 

The possession, then, of a husband who knows 
the difference between old Viennese and old Dresden 
china, having acquired his information by sitting 
in the house, may be a thing to brag about, — like 
•a constitutional horror of cats, or an inability 
to digest strawberries, — but it has its disadvan- 
tages. 

I should not want it to get about where any man 
were likely to hear it, but one of the reasons why we 
get married is to buy our own things, sell them, buy 
more, and move them about. 

Jane and I know a New Man whose bridal pres- 
ent to his wife was a house completely furnished 
from garret to basement, and so perfect was the 
taste displayed that the most ingenious woman could 
not discover so much as a chair cover to find fault 
with. 

Once she suggested that she introduce a work 
table of her own, about which associations clustered, 
into the morning room, but he made it perfectly plain 
that that particular work table would be the " jarring 
note." 

Now as my friend had married, like the rest of us, 
to attend auctions, either of her own or other peo- 
ple's things, you can fancy the blight that fell upon 
her when she entered this too, too perfect place. She 
was not lacking in a homely wit, and at first she 



12 The New Man 

tried to fight the enemy with his own weapons. She 
said the house *' lacked atmosphere," but it depends 
upon whose Hps these impressive phrases issue 
from. He looked hurt, but not yielding ; and though 
she had every disposition to drop a bottle of ink in 
the centre of the drawing-room, or let a gas jet do 
its will on a high-art frieze, she did neither, but de- 
tested the house. 

When we saw her a year afterwards, she was mak- 
ing arrangements to spend the summer at her own 
rat-trap of a place in the country, where curtains of 
a grass green hung at the windows, and two large 
decalcomanie vases, the work of her own hands, 
were the parlour's chief ornament. 

Now the waters of Jordan are no more popular 
to-day than they were when the sick king was bidden 
to bathe in them ; but speaking with respect, I really 
believe that if people would take our advice, much 
that is objectionable in the New Man would be done 
away with. If, instead of his leading the idle life 
of an amateur collector of china or old silver or ma- 
hogany, he really made himself useful about the 
house, even we who' are not too easily pleased 
would no longer regard him as a nuisance. 

Nature, so badly perverted by custom, has really 
given man qualities that particularly fit him to excel 
in three occupations : those of cook, lady's maid, and 
nurse. 

The qualifications of a good cook are a high 



The New Man 



13 



temper, an irritable disposition, strength of arm, a 
love of good eating, and a critical taste. 

Long has woman served in this uncongenial em- 
ployment. She who cares nothing for the viands she 
has spent her life in preparing has not obeyed a law 
of nature when she cooks, but a law of custom. That 
native fire and spirit which are the heritage of every 
man, if directed to a sauce or gravy, would make of 
the humblest kitchen the gourmet's paradise; that 
reticence which renders him, at the head of his table, 
a menace to good cheer, would go far in the kitchen 
to maintain that order and quiet which is the unful- 
filled dream of the housewife. 

The objection to the female cook is her followers, 
but the male cook would be subject to no such allure- 
ments; his apron would be fatal to romance, just as 
the brass buttons of the soldier inspire it. 

And so the misfortune, as he terms it, of being 
forced by progressive and competent Woman — to 
uncongenial employments, will prove, as Emerson 
says, that '' in proportion to the vigour of the indi- 
vidual, his revolutions are frequent. It is the order 
of nature to grow, and every soul is, by this intrinsic 
necessity, quitting his whole system of things, as 
the shell fish crawls out of his beautiful, but stony 
case." 

And in the matter of nursing, there is no father 
who will not declare that he is formed by Providence 
for this task, and but for the old stumbling block 



14 The New Man 

already referred to, — if only he had time, — his chil- 
dren would be perfectly brought up under his wise 
and beneficent care. 

" He is never troublesome when I have him," 
" My dear, it is very strange that the baby always 
stops crying when I take him." How familiar are 
these utterances. And what angels the little ones 
are Sunday afternoons, when he constitutes himself 
their guardian in a long, pleasant walk ! If he prove 
so perfect a success in half an hour at night, and once 
a week from four till five, what would he not accom- 
plish were they his entire charge? 

No nerves about him, natural fairness, a cast-iron 
back, the legs of a centipede, fate herself has fitted 
him for the profession. 

And for the third resource. — During the past year, 
men lady's maids have proved the greatest possible 
success. In a recent number of a most expensive 
magazine, we read that at Newport the aristocracy, 
having once used them, will have no other; that 
they are, in a word, as necessary to the toilet as a 
black crepe de chine. The matter of cleaning the 
silver that encumbers the dressing case is one that 
occupies him an hour a week, the shaking of skirts 
does not injure his cast-iron back, and as for the late 
ball, give him a half a dozen cigars and the but- 
ler to take a hand at euchre, and he will sit up all 
night in cheerful expectancy of his mistress' return. 

And one may feel such perfect security about one's 



The New Man 15 

things! Gloves, slippers, a hundred articles of the 
toilet, are as safe with him as a child in its mother's 
arms. 

And his taste in dress! A female lady's maid 
can't help looking at the garment, but the male lady's 
maid looks at the woman who wears it. He regards 
it from the masculine standpoint, and when he is by 
to counsel her, she wears what is becoming, not what 
is the style. In consequence, when she sallies forth 
to the fete, if he has chosen her costume, the sex by 
whom she would be admired throngs about her. 
And the women are kinder than she has ever known 
them to be. '' Poor thing," they murmur as she 
passes, " what a frightful gown," and are gentle to 
her charming face. 

It really requires more magnanimity to forgive a 
surpassing toilet than a beautiful countenance. 

So you see, even the man who does not go down 
town can make himself " felt," as we say, about the 
house. He may have luck, and marry a successful 
doctor, lawyer, merchant who will care for him and 
provide for him. 

But he will find, should such fortune be his, that 
none of these accomplishments will make him the less 
valuable in the home to which he will take them. 

And he must remember that marriage, while an 
adjunct, is not a necessity of happiness. Many a 
man has lived and died a cheerful, self-sustaining old 
bachelor. And at this time of our history, no true 



1 6 The New Man 

mother will educate her son to think matrimony the 
end and aim of existence. Let her rather so bring 
him up that a son at her knee will learn to be modest, 
but independent. 

And if no strong, brave woman offer him her deep, 
protecting love, why, he can find his peace in the con- 
genial tasks recommended in these pages. 



II 

THE other day I was talking with the mother 
of a spoiled, self-willed little girl, — a child 
not without her redeeming points, but upon whose 
infantile lips I fancy the words " won't " and 
*' shan't" issued when one was so unfortunate as to 
hit upon a request repugnant to her. "Is Amy like 
you? " I asked in the old to-be-expected fashion. 

If I had asked if she was like her great aunt 
Priscilla, who had a harelip, my friend could not 
have been more scandalised. 

*' Like me ? No, indeed. I am thankful to say she 
is not in the least like me. I only wish I were like 
her." 

And, though this experience of maternal pride 
with self-deprecation would have satisfied the ambi- 
tion of most people, I was not content till I tried 
again, and to another acquaintance put the natural 
and not-of-itself offensive question : " Is Gussie go- 
ing to have your pretty taste for painting? " Dear, 
dear, what a business ! this of knowing what to talk 
about. " Gussie," said the mother, in quite a heat 

17 



1 8 The New Child 

of offended partisanship, " Gussie has decided 
talent, she is going to be an artist. She is 
not in the least like me, and certainly not like 
her father. She is the most conscientious, the 
most versatile " The flood of Gussie' s accom- 
plishments and virtues descended upon me till I was 
engulfed. They left me sputtering, and her parents 
as bare as buried bones. 

And then it came over a slow but patient intelli- 
gence that these remarks cast light on an individual 
hitherto little known to me, though the prescience of 
the calamity of his existence was certainly futured, 
as we say, by certain prophets. This individual is 
the Child. It must be confessed that I should have 
liked to make his acquaintance entirely through lit- 
erature, as I have known Nero, Commodus, and 
other illustrious persons whose deeds have lighted 
the dull pages of history. But it was decreed that, 
as I am going out, he has come in, and our paths 
meet. For the rest of my life I see no way of avoid- 
ing The Child. 

Now, in the very beginning, I must be plain with 
you and discuss this matter seriously, with dignity 
and solemnity, as an ethical preacher discusses our 
immortal part. We should speak of The Child, in- 
deed, as we speak of the soul. The Child himself 
is in the pulpit, and has taken the place of the doc- 
trines of free will and predestination. 

In literature — ^here, I do joy in it, as we say — ^he 



The New Child 19 

has come into our field, and Woman has sHpped from 
under the microscope. 

Now until my recent investigations I have always 
thought that parents cared for their children quite 
enough for all necessary purposes. They spoiled 
them and praised them and admired them till they 
were as disagreeable as the fondest mother's heart 
could wish. Two adjectives were consecrated to 
babyhood. If he was teething, we called him 
'' splendid"; if past that stage, " magnificent." But 
in the new gospel, as taught by such thinkers as Pro- 
fessor Rowe of New Haven, '' The Child is a won- 
derful being, and opens up to us problem after prob- 
lem and enigma after enigma" (and here I con- 
dense), but the really important part of the subject is 
not what we think of him, but what he thinks of us. 
As to his physique, he is in a bad way. Madam, we 
dodge when we say it. Professor Rowe and the 
author, but through some fault of your own or your 
ancestors, your Child has imperfect eyesight, he 
hears indistinctly, his enunciation is defective. He 
has either epilepsy or hysteria. Wonderful as are 
his moral qualities, under which your fancied vir- 
tues shrivel up like a burning scroll, he takes his 
breath badly, and there is something wrong with the 
shape of his nose. No wonder the parents of Amy 
and Gussie repudiated any likeness between them- 
selves and their offspring, if what Professor Rowe 
declares is true. 



20 The New Child 

Now deep down in the inmost recesses of your 
mind, you may at times have thought your talented 
Tommy lazy, though you would have repudiated the 
notion as unjust had it been suggested by his papa. 
But from Professor Rowe you have learned that he 
is not lazy. The Child is never lazy. He was suf- 
fering from fatigue or nervousness, and you should 
discriminate between the two conditions, or you must 
pay the penalty. Rather than offend one of these 
little ones — why, of course you will pick up your 
book yourself. Fatigue, expressed when The Child 
is told to put away the wood or to go on an errand, 
'' is the result of reduced nerve force and is deaden- 
ing as far as the fulfilment of the tiresome 
task is concerned, but," says this fair-minded 
educator, " it does not reduce necessarily the ability 
to put forth energy. Weariness, however, is psychi- 
cal. It relates to the interests and the desires." 
Therefore, when you make your Tommy go for his 
sister who is spending the evening out, though you 
do it at your moral peril, you may not have injured 
permanently his diseased body; but if he declares 
himself sleepy over his book, or complains that it 
does not interest him, you have sinned against the 
light, if you do not at once send him to the soda 
fountain to recuperate his '' nerve waste " by a 
change of impressions. 

The duties of a mother have never been particu- 
larly easy, even when The Child was " the children.'' 



The New Child 21 

They were subject to tiresome complaints, 
and stockings and trousers had a way of 
getting torn and soiled. To be sure, the limits 
of maternal pride are hard to reach. I have 
seen a young mamma blush and bridle and look 
as if she had discovered herself to be entitled to be- 
come a Daughter of the American Revolution, when 
she announced, " he has the most terrible temper, he 
nearly chokes himself to death in his rages." And 
my very nearest neig'hbour cannot mention her son 
without the proud tribute: " He really is the dir- 
tiest boy I ever saw, mud every day up to his neck." 
But as the weight of a rose leaf to that of a chapter 
of Duruy's " Middle Ages," so is the burden of the 
mother of children to that of the mother of The 
Child. I read, or rather Jane read to me last week, 
that this unfortunate ought to have, along with the 
squills and the hot-water bag, the ergograph and the 
sphygmometer. 

When Tommy, in the old-fashioned way, says he is 
not going to bed, we must not argue with him in the 
good, old-fashioned way, or promise him a piece of 
candy before breakfast if he is a good boy. We 
must put the ergograph on his index finger, and the 
sphygmometer on the bridge of his nose, and when 
he is thus adorned, we must discover whether his un- 
willingness results from fatigue and dread of ascend- 
ing the stairs, or from '' weariness," which is brain 
fag. If from fatigue, he must be sent out to walk 



22 The New Child 

about the square with his papa; if weariness, an extra 
meal must be set before him, and he be invigorated 
by a favourite dish, temptingly prepared. 

If it were permissible, I should myself invoke the 
saints that Tommy go tO' sleep on the parlour sofa 
early. I do not know a harder thing to accomplish 
than to get a father in slippers and smoking jacket, 
to quit his evening paper and lead a sleepy boy 
around the block, except indeed to prepare a " fa- 
vourite dish" when cook has gone up, and the fire is 
low. " If Professor Rowe had our Seraphina," be- 
gan Jane — but then he hasn't. We have Seraphina. 

The Germans have other directions for the mother, 
which come under the head of '' suggestion." They 
say she must go into a dark room, shut out all dis- 
tracting sights and sounds, and, to the exclu- 
sion of every other thought, muse upon The 
Child, his individualisms, his preferences, his 
outward form, his inner content. A creature 
who does not see, hear, walk, talk, or breathe 
properly, is certainly food for thought, but all 
these can be corrected if the room is dark enough 
and the mother brings her whole thinking power 
to bear on the being of the boy. 

To him, she is to be the violet ray which will ab- 
sorb the lupus. And although his utterance be 
indistinct, she should listen to it. 

But lately from the celestial regions and trailing 
clouds of glory as he comes, he retains much of 



The New Child 23 

their wisdom. Every word should be carefully 
picked up and put into a bottle, though a careful 
mother will put the bottle out of reach, lest he do 
the thing he would not do and swallow his own 
words. 

As for his sentences, when he begins to converse, 
of course she will frame them, first working them 
in wool on cardboard. I am sure " Give it to me," 
" I wan' my breakfast,'' will look much better over 
the mantelpiece than the passe " God Bless Our 
Home." 

I acknowledged that it is only recently that The 
Child has come into our own horizon. Janet and 
James have grown up, and they were " raised," to 
use a term familiar to partially civilised farming dis- 
tricts, on the old plan — that of neglect, alternating 
with ill-judged indulgence. Unfortunately, for the 
example's sake, they not only survived, but are 
strong placid creatures, such as Professor Rowe 
would fondly hope you may make of your imperfect 
little Tommy, if you do your duty by him; and I am 
perfectly aware that I have incurred the deepest re- 
sentment in the bosom of my best friends because, in 
just retribution for their irresponsible bringing up, 
Janet is not a warning to evil-doers, and James is 
not in a penal institution. On the contrary — ^with 
— I was about to say the Irony of fate, but am pre- 
vented the use of the phrase by a Ruskinish denun- 
ciation from Mr. Henley — such is fate's injustice, 



24 The New Child 

these children of an unenlightened parent have 
grown up to abash her with their impeccability, to 
compel her to keep her lamp filled, her wick clean, 
for very shame before their industry. 

And just here I will slip in a remark which, while 
it is of the nature of digression, it will relieve me to 
make. I do not of course know whether it has been 
your fortune to live in the house with people in whom 
no fault is to be found, but I can testify that if it were 
not for Jane and a poor-spirited housemaid, in whose 
characters I can pick flaws, I should long ago have 
quit my home, and become a reciter of monologues 
at private entertainments, where I was hired not for 
my talent, but '' to assist a worthy gentlewoman." 

So to hark back. The Child, whom others know, 
or say they know, has never shone for me, but for 
these less lucky people has been shining a long time. 
The attitude of breathless respect, the phrases " sanc- 
tity of childhood," '' blessedness of innocency," the 
" hist " look parents put on when he opens the lips 
in which his milk teeth linger at intervals — all this 
has been known and suffered for a good while, but 
we have regarded it as we did the Boer war, taking 
sides first with one party, then with the other, and 
congratulating ourselves that we got over our fight- 
ing in '65. 

But the experiences of others are entertaining. A 
gentleman told me lately that now his children are 
small, between the ages of four and six (I use the 



The New Child 25 

old word " children," but an intellig^ent person will 
understand there can be several manifestations of 
The Child in the same house at the same time — the 
temple Buddha, the column Buddha, the shrine 
Buddha — you have noticed this in the sacred pre- 
cincts of the god), — he can protect himself from 
their onslaughts by a barricade of sofas and chairs. 
But to ensure for himself whole limbs, when they 
get to be seven and eight, he is practising pistol 
shooting. 

While one can but admire this man's forethought, 
I don't think firearms ought to be resorted to, ex- 
cept in extreme instances. The Child may be di- 
verted from inflicting serious injuries upon his 
parents. I myself have found sticks of candy use- 
ful, and promises of ponies or canary birds. Any of 
these chimerical gifts used to disarm both Janet and 
James, and bring about what powder and shot will 
doubtless fail to do. 

What The Child wants, I take it, now and always, 
is its own way; and an even imperfectly educated 
parent will give it him without resorting to deadly 
weapons. 

And yet I do not know that I should either sell 
or give away my pistol. 

Mr. Walter Pater says : " There is a time in The 
Child's life when he seems to experience a passion- 
ateness in his relation to fair, outward objects — an 
inexplicable excitement in their presence which dis- 



26 The New Child 

turbs him and from which he longs to be free. With 
the coming of the gracious summer guise of fields, 
flowers, and persons in each succeeding season of 
the year, comes a desire for entire possession of them, 
and a kind of tyranny of the senses comes over him." 

This explanation of The Child's " passionateness 
toward fair, outward objects, flowers, fields, and 
* even ' persons," has been noticed in almost every 
family, and though one may hesitate to call one's 
self " fair," candidly, since we have seen that '' our 
presence does disturb him," let the pistol stay a while. 
As to his " longing to be free, as expressed by a 
kind of tyranny of the senses," I suppose this light 
on his character will carry comfort to mothers when 
family portraits are used as targets for slingshots, 
the furniture disfigured with pocket knives, and the 
banisters must be repaired after he has spent a rainy 
day in the house. 

Another suggestion. In Bar Harbor this summer, 
there was a lady who resorted to this expedient. 
The doctor said she must live quietly and at peace. 
So, being a woman of means, she engaged three 
houses. In the first and best, she put her children; 
in the second, her servants ; in the smallest and least 
desirable, she put herself. 



Ill 

Ubc xrell*Uale Ibouse 

IF I wanted to conceal my real life, temperament, 
or opinions from certain discriminating individ- 
uals, I would not let them into^ my house. The 
house is more revealing than the conversation or any 
single act, or, for that matter, than any number of 
acts. One may assimilate a character until, as far 
as the outer circle is concerned, she may 
be that character. Knowing her as a member 
of the same literary club, as one of the committee 
board, or even through meeting her at country 
houses, I may judge my acquaintance to be large- 
minded, generous, hospitable, deeply cultured; or I 
may, from similar opportunities, decide that she is 
the opposite of all these qualities. But a woman's 
appearance in all semi-public functions is illusory. 
Enter the front door, step into the room where. she 
lives or where she would have you think she lives, 
and you come upon the real person, and that without 
one word from her. 

" But," says the sceptic, " you forget that a wom- 
an's home is not always the expression of herself. 

27 



28 The Tell-Tale House 

On the contrary, it is the expression of his mother's 
taste, or first wife's taste, or of the taste of her 
young, crude hfe, which she has long outgrown. 
And oftener still it is a simple expression of impo- 
tence, of bald and hideous poverty, which must exist 
with bare walls and pine tables and chairs. There is 
more pathos," adds the carper — who, had she lived 
in the eighteenth century, would be described as a 
person of sensibility — " there is more pathos in a 
faded photograph of the Sistine Madonna than in the 
finest steel engraving that hangs on these walls." 

And all of this is true and would deprive me of 
the wind that is supposed to waft this communication 
to your consideration, did she who addresses you 
mean that taste is a revelation of the mind or soul. 
Taste, after all, is in a measure external. A whole- 
souled, open-minded person — (though it is hard to 
believe it) — may buy, because she admires them, 
red satin chairs and red cut velvet sofas, and even 
choose an 8 x lo coloured lithograph of " The Mis- 
sionary's Return," and encase it in a decorated 30 x 
40 oak frame studded with gold nails ; she may com- 
mit these crimes against society, and at the same time 
have a real love of books, and clear ideas about the 
bringing up of children. I doubt if she can be per- 
manently interesting, because she must lack percep- 
tion and observation; but even these are not the 
qualities, were I aware that I possessed them, that 
would tempt me to turn the key on a visitor. What 



The Tell-Tale House 29 

I should fear would be disclosed are the lack of the 
more important qualities of sincerity and judgment, 
and a sense of proportion in expenditure. Unluck- 
ily, these are the characteristics of the housewife's 
mind which her home betrays. 

Now, to begin with sincerity. Sincerity, the 
moralists tell us, marks the aristocrat, secretiveness 
the plebeian; because force, which disdains conceal- 
ment, shows the lord, while cunning is the weapon 
of the lowly. But although this aphorism sounds 
well, I have seen well-born women, without even 
the excuse of timidity, who are ambitious of being 
thought cultured and literary, and who, therefore, 
attempt to impose this impression on their acquaint- 
ances by creating a fictitious air of culture in their 
homes. With the greatest pains they scatter books 
on the centre table, distribute the freshest maga- 
zines, put the paper knife invitingly in the latest 
volume of essays or plays, and even draw a com- 
fortable chair to the corner where the light falls best, 
and where the talked-of novel has slid easily on to the 
floor. 

This sort of insincerity is so plausible, so imitative 
of virtue, that it deserves to succeed. But, to borrow 
a phrase, alas for the moral responsibility of inani- 
mate things. This meritorious effort does not de- 
ceive. The table, arranged to produce an impres- 
sion, exhibits an obstinacy that, if it were a frac- 
tious child, would send it to bed without its sup- 



30 The Tell-Tale House 

per. It is as tell-tale as the immemorial little shirt 
upon which Mrs. Rawdon Crawley sewed for suc- 
cessive years, till Rawdon could not have got- 
ten his brawny forefinger in its tiny armhole. That 
stationary look that enraged the fair Becky charac- 
terizes the impromptu chair. Tis pity, but 'tis true, 
that not only literature itself, but the human ele- 
ment, must be combined with literature to produce 
the atmosphere of culture. 

And as there are people who would like to be 
thought cultured without being willing to take the 
trouble of really being so, so there are people who 
would like to be thought hospitable, and who take a 
great deal of pains to give their homes the externals 
of generous proportions and the accessories of wel- 
come, in comfortable furniture, space, and studied 
carelessness of arrangement. But again the pro- 
voking atmosphere. *' There is nothing the matter 
with the horse," says Sancho Panza, *' but the horse 
is dead." The supposititious guest who did not sit 
in the inviting arm-chair last night, or for many a 
night, has left it cold. All the housewifely care that 
you have bestowed on your drawing-room, madam, 
in the matter of conscientious airing and opening 
of windows, has not generated that feeling of 
warmth, combined with crisp friendliness, that is the 
ideal environment. 

I would not go so far as to say that empty rooms 
are peopled with the shades of the departed, but 



The Tell-Tale House 31 

something of the past remains. If this had been a 
rendezvous, as you would have me think it, of gay, 
cheerful, companionable people, the air were not 
chill and damp, but it would be indescribably per- 
meated with their presence. There would be some- 
thing vital, human, in the very greeting of sofas and 
chairs. 

The attempt to do what you are doing was made 
long ago and with just as much success, madam. 
The salon of the Petit Luxembourg was supposed to 
be the rival of the Hotel Rambouillet, but in spite 
of the sumptuously painted ceilings, the almost regal 
decorations, the simple salon bleu bore away the 
palm. 

And then, you may be above it, and would not 
care, but I, faint-hearted, would not like to have one 
who was not kind see our house if there were no uni- 
formity of care or expenditure. As it is a pity to 
put all one's eggs in one basket, it is a pity to fur- 
nish one room to the slighting of other rooms. Then 
too, like the other evidences of insincerity against 
which I have warned you, this particular attempt to 
produce a false impression is so seldom successful, 
and there is something so heartrending in a futile 
lie! The door is sure to spring open and disclose 
the wastes beyond ; you are at the mercy of fiendish 
infants and stupid servants. 

But hard and perilous as it is to live wholly for 
other people, I have learned to regard with a soup- 



32 The Tell-Tale House 

gon of suspicion the mistress who lives wholly for 
herself. 

'' The rest of the house," you will hear the intellec- 
tually superior person say, '^ belongs to the world, 
but I express myself here." And she displays some 
airy chamber on the second floor that she calls her 
" den " ; and, it may as well be confessed, the day 
was when the writer was much impressed with this 
phrase, and felt as though she were really to see the 
naked soul laid bare, and, stripped of its extraneous 
trappings, the real woman step forth. But experi- 
ence has taught her that this sort of expression of 
personality is characteristic of narrowness and self- 
ishness. It would be selfish to absorb the best, were 
it a peach or a cozy seat by the fire. Why not call 
it selfish to make one's own intellectual and artistic 
atmosphere, without regard to that to be breathed 
by the rest of the household? Why should all the 
best books, and the good pictures, and the effective 
draperies be consecrated to Lavinia, who has a 
pretty taste for such things, while the rest of us 
look at chromos and sit in gilt straw chairs. 

At the time when servile admiration for the prac- 
tical obtained, a lady with a reputation for being an 
" excellent housekeeper," and what old-fashioned 
people called a " good manager," could throw the 
windows of her soul wide open to the sun with a re- 
mark like this : '' I like books very well in their 
proper place, but don't want them littering up my 



The Tell-Tale House 33 

house. I want them in the Hbrary, where they be- 
long, in bookcases under lock and key to keep out 
the dust." 

But times have changed. Nobody would dare 
to free herself of this barbarous sentiment in this, the 
age of aspiration and longing. And they are no 
longer looked up to as '' difficult " and " exclusive " 
— the people whose daily orders to the butler were 
" not at home," and whose drawing-room was a 
coveted and denied paradise. 

It is the mode to be both literary and hospitable. 
One is served to weak tea and macaroons where once 
the door was shut in one's face ; and on a mantel but 
lately adorned with bisque china shepherdesses, 
to-day a cast of Donatello's or one of Perugino's 
saints looks down, blending meek acquiescence with 
a prayerful yearning of the impassioned soul. Un- 
luckily, neither effort produces the coveted environ- 
ment. 

But a word in the ear from one who, without self- 
praise, may describe herself as having performed 
as many offices to those whom she addresses as has 
a folding-bed to its owner. The real thing, that we 
care enough for to pretend to, is not hard to attain. 
The time taken to produce an impression that one 
has a love of books, were it given to reading them, 
would generate the atmosphere we would exhale, 



IV 
Set\?ant0 

I AM perfectly aware that it is not proper to talk 
about servants. W'hen certain people do so, 
they become vulgar. It takes the most refined and 
sensitive nature to discuss intimate topics. But per- 
haps that knowledge adds to the zest, so that, when, 
as happened only yesterday, three ladies threw aside 
the shackles of conventionality, and frankly told what 
their maids had said and done, and exchanged con- 
fidences upon this most vital subject, there were 
character-drawing, experience, self-revelation, every 
constituent of a moving drama. These ladies told 
a great deal about their servants, but they told more 
about themselves. To be sure, their own fresh im- 
pressions as to how to treat servants, which was the 
topic of the conversation, would have been more 
original, and would have contained more practical 
information, had they not polluted the pure stream 
of their thought by recent literature upon the sub- 
ject, and by trying to appear well, each to the other; 
but there were touches of sincerity, moments when 
a plain confession was made, and I was sufficiently 

34 



Servants 35 

edified to give you the benefit of their avowals, ac- 
knowledging at the same time that the subject is not 
quite what may be pleasing to your cultured ears. 

''How do you treat your servants?" asked the 
young married lady of her somewhat more experi- 
enced friend, and the latter was quick with her reply : 

'' With the greatest deference and respect. My 
attitude in giving an order is one of hesitation, the 
' May I ? ' manner in which Charles Reade's hero- 
ines got their way." 

" I think you are wrong," said the first-named. 
" I treat them like machines. I do not even know 
their last names. I never require them to give me 
extra hours, extra work, or to take any duty which 
they are not specifically engaged to do. When I am 
ill I wait upon myself, for there is no servant in the 
house who is engaged to nurse me. Nothing, not a 
case of scarlet fever or a conflagration in the kitchen, 
prevents each taking her afternoon out when the 
day comes. And in return, when their brother-in- 
law dies, or they have a chill, I am in utter ignorance 
of their personal affairs. Nor does this come from 
hard-heartedness. The experience of life has taught 
me that servants prefer the relations between them- 
selves and their employers to be purely that of busi- 
ness. They resent our intrusion into their affairs, 
as much as we resent their intrusion into ours. I 
had a very clever maid once, who, when I asked her 
why she left her last place, said, ' I found myself 



36 Servants 

getting attached to the children, and as I knew that 
they would not be attached to me after they left the 
nursery, and that I was laying up heart-breaks and 
disappointments for myself, I gave notice. Had I 
stayed, I should have been considering their interests 
instead of my own, perhaps doing extra work ; and, 
had my employer gotten into money difficulties, and, 
had I let myself go on being interested in them, I 
might even have taken lower wages. As I could not, 
as a servant, be anything to them, common sense told 
me that was all wrong. It hurt me a little when I 
came away, but I have gotten over it now, just as 
the children have stopped missing me. I shall never 
put myself into such temptation again.' " 

And then the eldest woman, who for years had 
been walking the long and dusty way, was asked to 
tell her story. 

*' I shut my eyes, I put wax in my ears; when the 
housemaid scolds me, I am deaf ; when the cook takes 
food to support her husband and children and coals 
to warm them, I think of the scriptural injunction: 
* She who does not provide for her own household is 
no better than a heathen.' I do not make them my 
bosom friends, as you say you do (addressing the 
first speaker), or consult them as to what I shall 
wear, nor do I treat them as if they were the furnace 
or the doorbell ; but I treat them as I do other people, 
whom I expect now and then to tell fibs and be cross 
and impose upon nie. I am perfectly willing to b^ar 



Servants 37 

an outbreak of temper from one whose soup is uni- 
formly good; and when I want a hot-water bag, I 
ask for it, although I know the maid hates to fetch 
it and will call me uncomplimentary names when she 
gets back to the kitchen, where she is entertaining 
her young man, against my orders. But then I 
prefer to be waited on to being liked; and I would 
rather, really, have a comfortable dinner than the 
affection of the cook." 

Now if I have succeeded in interesting you at all 
in these experiences, you will want to know how 
the different plans worked; and I shall have to tell 
you that the last speaker alone succeeded in creating 
about her an atmosphere of ease and good cheer. 
She who treated her servants as if they were ma- 
chines discovered that machines also have their 
whims ; and as stoves, for unaccountable reasons, do 
not draw, while chimneys smoke; so human beings 
served as stoves and chimneys also get out of order 
without reason, and refuse to do their work. When 
a neighbor offered the clever maid a dollar or two 
more wages a month than her mistress paid, the ac- 
complished menial quit her rational home and her 
sensible employer, without so much as a word of 
explanation. The first of the group found, after a 
while, that she could not have her mother to visit 
her, because that lady did not come up to the cook's 
idea of an agreeable person; and that the feelings of 
the parlour maid cut the family off from interesting 



38 Servants 

topics, like European politics and the anarchist move- 
ment in Chicago. But the house which one is bound 
to describe as governed under lax principles is a 
warm, generous place, where the welcome is hearty, 
and even the housemaid, who is not above supply- 
ing her necessities out of her mistress' surplus, wears 
a smiling countenance, and of her own accord serves 
tea. To be sure, one would like honesty. I hope 
you will not think me narrow-minded if I venture to 
say that I would not myself employ a person whom 
I knew to be a thief. With something of the same 
passion Jane and I regard our things as did Mrs. 
Gereth hers, in the tragic " Spoils of Poynton " — 
inferior as our possessions are to those inanimate 
wreckers of happiness. But, if ease in living be 
purchasable, I think my friend is right to buy it at 
its price. 

What we ask of servants is a question so seldom 
put that it would be a waste of time to ask it here, 
were it not that now and then one has an experience 
like that of Lady Ruthven, which Mr. Augustus J. 
C. Hare mentions in his '' Memoirs." A person 
wrote to Lady Ruthven for a recommendation of 
her former footman, and she expressed herself in 
the following remarkable words : " Is he clean, in- 
telligent, non-alcoholic, not a smoker, a church 
member, kind, truthful, and generally competent ? " 
To which modest requirements Lady Ruthven re- 
plied : '' Madam, if John Smith could have answered 



Servants 39 

in the affirmative half your questions, I would have 
married him long ago." 

But the fact is that what servants require of us 
is so much more important than what we require of 
them, that I would gladly coach any mistress if I 
only knew what would be likely to make her popular 
with this difficult class. But it is hard to know what 
to say. For instance, the other day I was like Ham- 
let, *' between the incensed points of mighty oppo- 
sites," when an entrancing looking cook, of whom 
v^^e were in dire need, asked whether or not we had 
much company. Should I tell her no, and have her 
go away because we did not live up to her ideas of 
gentility, or should I say yes, and then have her re- 
fuse because of extra work ? These are matters that 
disturb persons who have a conscientious dislike for 
telling futile falsehoods. 

A friend who has a large establishment informs 
me that her butler, an Englishman, was good enough 
to give her husband a character. '' My master," he 
said, '* is a gentleman. He knows his place. He 
never finds fault with a hunder servant except 
through a hupper servant, nor never casts a shadder 
on a hupper servant in the presence of a hunder." 
After this hint from high authority, Jane and I, who 
are imitative creatures, sent word to the charwoman 
by the cook that the abandoned condition of cellar 
stairs had caused the threatened visit of our Aunt 
Caroline to be awaited with shame and confusion; 



40 Servants 

which plan worked all right as far as the cook's part, 
but came near bringing us in the patrol wagon to 
the police court under an indictment of the incensed 
" hunder servant." 

But a servant will now and then prove a friend. 
Once Browning was away on a holiday, and a person 
connected with the press came to his house and asked 
if it was true that the poet was dead. " I have heard 
nothing of it," said the faithful caretaker, *' and I 
am sure my master would never have done such a 
thing without giving full notice." " Oh, I assure 
you," said the reporter, '' those kind of people often 
die that way, Dickens did, and so did Thackeray." 
Now it is straining credulity to the verge of snap- 
ping, when I tell you that I myself have seen a cook 
doing the family wash, and one who looked a shade 
responsible when the lard melted three days before 
its hour. But this was deep in the gloom of the 
nineteenth century. To-day, no proud, imperious 
spirit need blush to be mistress of a domain of which 
she is queen, and the recipient of homage to which 
that offered to the Emperor of Germany is as 
feathers to lead. 

To be a cook, one must have suffered, studied, 
experimented. Above all, one must be capable of 
all control except self-control. I am told that the 
haughty spirit which housekeepers notice in all cooks 
is necessary in the preparation of highly seasoned, 
spicy food. The temper of a cook enters into her 



Servants 41 

condiments, as the spirit of Emerson's dead warrior 
entered that of his conqueror. 

A friend of mine lately ventured into her cook's 
kitchen, and suggested a less violent demeanour to- 
wards the butler, and was sent out with the scornful 
" Do you want your sauces to taste like sweetened 
milk and raw flour? I put myself into my dinners." 
And if this be true, I can testify that " myself " was 
as fiery as love, and as penetrating as the odour of 
Mr. James Lane Allen's hempfields. Indeed, though 
she may be a small, thin person one could easily blow 
out of the window ( for the new cook, unlike the old, 
governs by moral, not physical force), she inspires 
a chill terror which the boldest housebreaker cannot 
flatter himself to evoke. 

Nor should a lady of intellectual tastes decline 
to be a cook, lest her studies be interrupted. Our 
own cook is of a literary turn, and devotes much 
of her time to reading. Her shelf of books hangs 
over the kneading board, and above the table is a 
self-acting roll, not a bread roll, on which are in- 
scribed aphorisms from Epictetus. While she is 
beating cake with one hand, she turns the leaves of 
some interesting volume with the other. As to the 
shelf of books, I ought to say that it was not my 
original idea, but that of Colonel Higginson, whose 
culinary directions have, as we say, greatly influ- 
enced me. " In every kitchen," says the champion 
of our rights, '' there should be a shelf of books, that 



42 Servants 

while the potatoes are boiHng and the pie baking, 
she may Hft herself out of her sordid surroundings, 
and keep the highest company." But it depends 
upon what sort of cook you have, as to what books 
you select. Jane says I am over particular, but I 
confess it makes me feel creepy when I see '' Poisons 
and their Antidotes," in Seraphina's hands when she 
is making up bread. 

The children tell me that, with her, cooking is a 
means to an end, that when she has sent us all to 
the almshouse, she is going to be a doctor. I know 
that, before she entered this simple abode, she waited 
in a summer hotel in Massachusetts, which presup- 
poses a college education; and yet there are times 
when I think of the fact that Dr. Koch was one of 
the few physicians who tested his discoveries upon 
himself. There are times when I am afraid Sera- 
phina will experiment with the '' Poisons," but for- 
get the '' Antidotes." And then I wish she could 
not read. I am not one to keep all the learning to 
myself, but, as the Catechism says, " such is my 
desire." 

But to go back to the shelf, for though Seraphina 
has her own *' special friends," as we say, in her own 
apartment, we are supposed to supply them. But 
what books? A sensitive cook might be offended 
even by a title. A friend of mine gave *' Ethics of 
the Dust " to her parlour maid, but she returned it 
with the remark that she herself resembled Mallarme, 



Servants 43 

the French poet, whose delicate sensibility could not 
endure the obvious. After this I would not put on 
my shelf such books as '' Red as a Rose Is She," or 
" Born of Flame." She might look upon it as some- 
thing personal, if one slipped in " The Lost Receipt," 
and it would never do to let her catch a glimpse of 
Tourguenieff's " Smoke." She'd have the plumbers 
in the house in a trice. 

A high-minded cook would certainly resent 
Smiles' " Self Help," nor should I dare to give her 
Poe's '' Bells "; she might take it for a hint. A de- 
pressed cook might be comforted, on the other hand, 
by " Saved by Fire," a practical cook be disappointed 
did she take up Arlo Bates' " Wheel of Fire," ex- 
pecting something about waffles; or, looking for a 
dissertation on " Gravies," light upon '' Thicker 
than Water." And one would hate to have her 
puzzling over " Peregrine Pickle," and not finding 
what she seeks. '' Free to Serve " is a great book, 
but it touches upon delicate ground. The Hampton 
student might like it, but how about the ancient re- 
tainer? "And," says Mrs. Bell, ''our first duty is 
to make our cooks happy." 

'" Ah, di me," as the Spaniards say, in old times 
how well we knew how to do it. It was by present- 
ing Bridget with an apple-green shawl, and a bonnet 
composed of fall vegetables, or walking like Nydia, 
the night of the conflagration, with fast-shut eyes, 
through the kitchen, oblivious of the presence of 



44 Servants 

from four to six (familiar hours) cousins taking 
tea. 

But one mocks at one's self when one thinks of 
illuminating the shady path of the haughty young 
person who says, '^ Don't you? " (in our part of the 
world it is made to sound like a remonstrance against 
a popular, but objectionable habit), ^' and would 
like," if we have quite done with it, " to borrow our 
North American.'' 

"" But, mamma," says Janet, our only daughter, 
who is a literal person, '' how is one to learn to cook; 
the receipt books are so puzzling, — ordering one to 
get things that are not patented, and asking for bay- 
leaves and fresh mushrooms. And you remember 
the cooking school ? " 

" The cooking school ! " Even over the stolid 
features of the males of our family, a ray of some- 
thing like alarmed interest passed. We all called out 
with rare unanimity, " Oh, yes ! we remember the 
cooking school." And then the inquirer's parent 
gave the following advice. 

The real way to learn how to cook is to absorb 
the science through literature. Art brave enough 
to own that thou hast lived so long as to have read 
the works of Elizabeth K. Wetherell ? In the pages 
of " The Wide World," in '' Queechy," in those of a 
classic called '' The Old Helmet," there are the full- 
est directions how to make coffee, pancakes, pies, 
and other New England articles of diet. The author, 



Servants 45 

though old-fashioned, knew the unchanging heart 
of man. So instead of making her heroines clever 
or beautiful, she made them sensitive and cooks. 
One can learn, between a conviction of sin and a 
watery love scene, exactly how to whip up an egg- 
less custard, and to make tea out of the roots of the 
sassafras. A better or more economical cook than 
Fleda, in " Queechy," and a more experienced hand 
in getting a meal than Ellen Montgomery, never 
taught girls the gentle art of winning souls. Mrs. 
Whitney, who is also not without discernment, 
shrewdly throws in a way of roasting oysters, while 
she brings up a somewhat lagging swain. When 
Esther would ask a favor of her Lord, she made 
him a feast. I should take Mr. Gissing, too, for a 
" good provider," as shown in the meals in " The 
Whirlpool," and Mr. Howells is really not only elo- 
quent in " The Landlord of Lion's Head," but 
explicit. This is the most refined and, at the same 
time, most practical way to learn how to cook; for 
these receipts result in something. The good cook, 
like Fleda, gets the Earl; and the poor one goes 
without. 



Ubc msiUb ant) tbe Dtsttot 

HOSPITALITY exercised in moderation is 
not a crime, and there are social gather- 
ings which may be described as entertainments, and 
when so called, leave not one smirch on the fair 
garment of veracity. A hostess with a passion for 
hospitality may, even without violating the laws of 
humanity, give an evening party, if her guests are 
young people with healthy stomachs, and spirits 
over which this gloomy function has little power. 
For young people, with their indifference to food, 
and regardlessness of poison in night air, find suffi- 
cient happiness in the mere fact of being alive and 
together. But, there are times when I have permitted 
myself to wonder whether, if it were not for the dis- 
ciplinary effect of giving and receiving, this would 
not be a brighter world, if we had high walls around 
our castles, from which we issued only to go to 
market, while our neighbours guarded their en- 
trances with rifles. 

Regarded as a discipline, I do not see why con- 
scientious persons should not substitute entertaining 

46 



The Visited and the Visitor 47 

for the old-fashioned hair shirt or flagellation. I 
have often seen people in the street whom I have 
suspected of indulging in these religious practices, 
judging from their air of fatigue commingled with 
a sort of exaltation. But later, I have discovered that 
they had been giving a series of dinners, or even har- 
bouring a distinguished guest. And then something 
familiar in the mien told me that no hair shirt or 
whip produced that look of anxiety mingled with 
importance — that it was the " anxious hostess " look, 
naturally confounded with the effect of these pious 
acts, but not to be mistaken by an expert. It is, in 
fact, the look that comes from giving out table linen, 
making up menus, propitiating servants, and flatter- 
ing them with deceitful and beguiling phrases 
which, alas! defeat their own ends. It is the look 
born of inventing graceful speeches, introducing 
people to each other, and cracking one's brains in 
trying to recollect names. It is oh, crown of mar- 
tyrdom! — the effort to appear cheerful that stamps 
its heel upon the countenance. 

Now a gift to the poor is soon done with, like 
having a tooth out; and one may fast, but there is 
a hot supper waiting at the end of the prescribed 
time. But doing good by filling one's house seems 
to me to be more muzzling to the temper, and more 
of a demand upon the nerves, than any modern or 
even mediaeval penance. The readers of Trollope 
will recollect that the only time in their long union 



48 The Visited and the Visitor 

when the indomitable '* Lady Glencora " yielded to 
the commands of the Duke, was when both heart 
and spirit were broken by repeated interviews with 
the housekeeper concerning the resources of Omnium 
Castle, in the matter of sheets and pillow cases for 
the three counties which she was entertaining. For 
my own part, I have seen a high-spirited woman who 
bore her dressmaker's ruin of a black velvet gown 
without a tear, burst into a passion of weeping, 
when the waffles, served to a visiting savant, came 
in pale and heavy-hearted. 

Indeed, the effort to appear a little more gracious 
than we really are, a little better-mannered, a little 
richer, has its salutary effect, and a course of visitors 
humbles the mind as well as excites the ambition 
to be what we seem. From this point of view, I 
have nothing but good words for hospitality. 

But there are hospitalities which, on being exer- 
cised, bestow no merit upon the hostess, because 
they are involuntary. Elizabeth, in the " German 
Garden," confesses that through no fault of her own 
she asked a person she neither knew nor liked to 
pass the Easter season with her, because she was re- 
quested to do so by another person to whom she even 
entertained an enmity. Elizabeth's festival, in con- 
sequence, became a howling wilderness, from the 
presence of her unwelcome guest ; but I cannot count 
the act that brought this about for righteousness. 
To ask people whom we do not want to accept our 



The Visited and the Visitor 49 

hospitality, because someone whom we disHke or- 
ders us to do so, is not virtue, but weakness. The 
fact is that I have thought so much about the virtue 
of hospitahty that I have gotten all tangled up, and 
I am about to offer you this moral axiom : The real 
good to be extracted from its exercise is — be hos- 
pitable, but do not enjoy it; be miserable in giving 
up your own sitting-room, and resigning it to those 
whose society you do not crave, but at the same time, 
feign pleasure in the sacrifice. 

It has been suggested that a good-natured visitor 
may do much to relieve the hostess of her cares and 
responsibilities. But there is something to say on 
the other side. There is a charm — a subtle charm, 
but an undeniable one — in giving one's own invita- 
tions, and ordering one's own carriage. I recollect 
inviting a friend to pass a week with me, and, that 
week having been completed, hearing with some 
quakings at the heart another of my visitors urge 
this friend to prolong her stay. The reasons pre- 
sented by this dispenser of vicarious hospitality were 
so excellent — so indisputable, it was made so clear 
why the visit should be lengthened, and our common 
friend was so insistent, that I have always regarded 
it as a triumph of diplomacy that my visitor ( I call 
her my visitor, but at that time she was presented to 
me as the visitor of my guest), had the presence of 
mind to invent an ill mother to whom she was bound 
to go at the appointed time. But we were not so 



50 The Visited and the Visitor 

lucky in another experience. We asked a young 
gentleman, a friend of James, to pay us a visit in the 
country. This young man was not content with 
making himself at home. He was good enough to 
try to make us at home. I could not move my seat 
from the fire-place to the window that he did not 
urge me to take another chair, for that which I had 
chosen was so uncomfortable; he was sure he could 
get me one that was better suited to repose. Our 
butler is a cross old man, still he knows us, and we 
know him ; but when I appeared at five o'clock, and 
the tea urn did not appear with me, our guest would 
run to the bell, ring it violently, and reprove the 
tottering Henry because he had not been on time. At 
dinner his care for us all was touching. He urged 
the soup upon John, recommended me to taste the 
salad. " May I serve you [a vulgarism which a 
missionary should stamp out] to this ragout? It is 
exactly right." And then, and in what follows lies 
a solemn warning, the payer of bills looked up, and 
in a tone to which arctic ice was as a Warm Springs 
bath, remarked : " Thank you, but I am quite at 
home; I shall not, however, be so to-morrow. I am 
shutting up my house, and going to spend the re- 
mainder of the summer on a Fall River steamboat." 
And this cruel uprooting by our natural protector 
— that John whose attractions grow apace with the 
years, and whom I would not exchange for a Mr. 
Rochester or a Granville de Vigne, nor, indeed, for 



The Visited and the Visitor 51 

even a Reverend Patrick Bronte ! this cruel uproot- 
ing was the thankless reward of trying to make 
things pleasant to people whose business it was to 
manage that affair themselves. How full of pitfalls, 
the way of the guest ! How narrow the way between 
accepting hospitality with indifference, and taking 
for granted that people mean what they say! You 
do not permit a stranger to give you advice? And 
yet she would fain breathe this little word : '' They 
never mean what they say. Especially fear her who 
tells you that her house is Liberty Hall, and that 
everyone must do as she chooses. In such a house, 
it is safe to take an alarm clock, so as to be punctual 
at breakfast, and to profess a passion for driving 
with one's back to the horses." 

'' But," says the friend in whom I have the most 
implicit confidence, who is looking over my shoulder, 
*' have you nothing to say of the long hours of bore- 
dom we who are supposed to be entertained spend 
in your house, walking up and down your stairway 
in our white robes, like the angels on Jacob's ladder ? 
Have not your invitations littered our desks for a 
dozen years. Have you not forced our presence by 
your insistent cards ? " 

To be frank, yes. The habit of hospitality grows 
upon one. A friend who has entertained a great 
deal tells me that her diseased imagination often 
pictures her to herself, as presenting people whom 
she does not know to each other, in the street cars — 



52 The Visited and the Visitor 

of introducing in church, during the hours of service, 
mothers to daughters, husbands to wives, and this 
from the mere force of habit in repeating a formula. 
She cannot go to a concert without distorting her 
countenance in an attempt to count noses ; and once 
she was caught looking at a Bird of Paradise in a 
stranger's hat, and muttering — oblivious of the im- 
pression she was making, " Hot, cold, souffle, hash." 
But, however popular her entertainments, one drop 
of bitterness too often tinctures the cup. 

I have yet to see the man over twenty-five who 
ever wanted to attend a social function, and I have 
seen dozens of the male relatives of eager women 
caught and kept in the back yard, with ball and 
chain about their ankles, awaiting the hour when 
they would be called upon to act as escorts. For this 
reluctance to be entertained, on the part of the one 
simple and candid survival of another age, in a 
morbid and distracted generation — Man, we must 
find a reason. I think we have it, do we but examine 
into our means of diverting our guests. 

But for the accessories of tables and chairs, instead 
of rugs and divans, our own house, on the occasion 
of one of Janet's functions, would remind the guest 
of a '' fantisir " given by an Arab Sheik, in his own 
sunny land. We bow them to a row of seats within 
view of a raised dais and a curtain, and there our 
responsibility for the evening ends. And it is all so 
like a return to Oriental civilisation, that insensibly 



The Visited and the Visitor 53 

we wait breathless for the Gewazee girls, in silken 
skirts, with waves of silver flashing in the meshes, 
with bracelets of jewels and anklets of gold, with 
necklaces of sequins, and faces powdered with 
thanaka. We wait for the dance to begin, the dance 
pensive, passionate, graceful, dramatic, the dance 
that tells in speaking attitude the story of the East, 
its luxury, its fire, its degradation, its despair. This 
is what we expect — but this is not what we see. 
When our curtain is drawn, it is upon the spectacle 
of an infant phenomenon who, for three mortal 
hours, repeats speeches and poems in two continental 
languages. The infant phenomenon's claim upon us 
is that he is the protege of that old enem-y, the 
woman whom we have never seen and never heard 
of, until we were commanded by a person who had 
sat at her board, to do our best to make him the 
fashion. Or it may be that our curtain is lifted on 
a wandering musician, who strikes the chords of our 
superannuated piano until they shrink tremblingly 
out of sight — an act which I myself would willingly 
perform — or upon a young lady of spotless reputa- 
tion, and an unblemished pedigree, who has taken 
it into her head to learn on us to fit herself for 
the stage. The repertoire of this sort of young lady 
ranges from the sleep-walking scene in '' Macbeth " 
to " Curfew Must Not Ring To-night." And it must 
be said that she is of a conscientious character, de- 
termined to give us our money's worth. We have 



54 The Visited and the Visitor 

printed programmes, and they lead us to expect that 
we shall have '' Juliet in the Balcony " scene, " How 
Persimmon Took Care of the Baby," " The Seven 
Ages of Man," or Poe's '' Raven." Ten minutes 
are allowed us for lukewarm tea and macaroons, 
handed over our heads — another reminder of the 
Orient, had Turkish paste been substituted for these 
viands. Janet tells me that anything so definite as 
a supper interrupts the intellectual enjoyment accru- 
ing from the recitations. I am sure that I do not 
like to remind people of unpleasant things, but you 
may recall the fact that '' Curfew " has a culmin- 
ative quality, and works up to its climax. But our 
actress in embryo put on all her steam in the first 
four stanzas ; therefore, when she reached " Wild her 
eyes, and pale her forehead," no sound issued from 
her lips, and the unliterary portion of her audience 
do not know to this day whether it rang or not. 

Another time our entertainer was a woman who 
had called at the house, and asked for money to 
return to the home of her youth, she having found 
the climate of our city inimical to her health. But 
Janet informed us that the solicitor should not be 
permitted to wrest her support from our community, 
nor would it be right to imperil the lady's self- 
respect by providing her with funds without a work- 
ing equivalent from her. By some occult process, un- 
known either to Jane or myself, Janet then extracted 
the confession that our suppliant was a poet, and it 



The Visited and the Visitor 55 

entered the somber but practical brain oi our daugh- 
ter that these poems might be read to an audience, 
that we might provide that audience, and call the 
invitation a '' soiree," saving the delicate feelings 
of the authoress by giving her the money to buy her 
ticket. It was a terrible decision. Fortunately the 
grippe was about, and the rapidity with which we 
received excuses was revealing. In fact, I do not 
believe that we would ever have succeeded in entic- 
ing anybody to our house again, and henceforth we 
would have lived the life of the Essenian hermits, 
had not John taken things in his own manly grasp, 
and sent out this card : ''At home from ten to 
three. Dancing. Supper from twelve to two, 
terrapin, canvas-back ducks, breasts of quail, wild 
roast turkey stuffed with chestnuts, glace puddings, 
creams, ices, Madeira, champagne, liqueurs." 

So much for the visited and their failures. And 
if I spoke my mind, I should say that of the two, 
the persons whom I have just discussed have chosen 
the better part. As hard as it is to entertain, it is 
harder to be entertained. Still, were an orphan, 
with a wicked uncle for guardian, and no home of 
her own, to write and ask me for advice as to how 
she was to conduct herself during her round of 
summer visits, I should feel myself bound to say 
something like the following in her ear. You have 
perhaps noticed at the pleasantest houses an unat- 
tached female, not particularly pretty, or young, or 



56 The Visited and the Visitor 

rich or even interesting, but whose engagement book 
is always full — who goes from seashore to moun- 
tains, to the select country house and the gay party, 
warmly greeted and eagerly sought by people who 
have their choice of guests. By close observation 
of her conduct, you will perceive that she has the 
negative, but comfortable quality of giving no trouble 
about small matters. 

For instance, she is not recovering from nervous 
prostration, and is not compelled to eat a thing of 
dough called *' The health biscuit," which is only 
procurable at a small shop, miles down-town, and 
sold by a widow of good birth, but reduced circum- 
stances, who invented it; she eats the vegetables 
that grow under ground and those which soar aloft, 
with no arriere pensee as to their moral influence; 
she has no repugnance to beef or mutton, not having 
professed the faith of Buddha, nor does she require 
dry, hot toast for breakfast — a viand Jane and I 
offer to our guests^ — but we are offended do they 
accept it. I might add that, while not incurring the 
enmity of others by an unfailing punctuality, she 
is generally on time, and does not lose her parasol, 
or, if she does, her heart bleeds in secret, and she 
does not send fat, breathless old Mr. Dana back to 
look for it. 

I do not say that this wise woman does not use 
some tact to conceal her talents; that she does not 
play golf a little less well than she can ; that she does 



The Visited and the Visitor 57 

not refrain from telling an interesting anecdote which, 
to a simpler person, would seem apropos. The fact is, 
she dresses in grey, and acts as a background to 
other people's reds and yellows; she listens, rather 
than talks ; and after an evening of " Oh, yes,'' 
'' I quite understand you," goes off with an em- 
bossed and signed certificate for brilliancy in con- 
versation. The repression of self is necessary in 
order to gain a reputation for agreeability, and 
though I do not say '' Visit," because visiting re- 
quires this sacrifice, I give you a recipe for getting 
invitations. 

Now, one single word upon a most delicate matter, 
the matter of fees. I know that high-minded people 
refrain from tipping servants, because, they say, 
they have delicate consideration for the next guest, 
who may not be able to give, and that any generosity 
may cause discontent. If generosity means money, 
I should like to say that no human being ever was 
discontented with an offer of money. Why, the Em- 
peror of Austria — but Jane says I must be prudent 
in these days of international misunderstandings. 
So I should tell my orphan to pay liberally. But 
whom? John says that, as he provides for the es- 
tablishment, he should be paid first; and Janet's 
mamma that, as she gives the orders, she should be 
paid next. But this sentiment has not been permitted 
tc pass our lips, lest it reflect upon our unstained 
reputation for hospitality. As she cannot pay us, 



58 The Visited and the Visitor 

she should pay the butler, Henry. Henry, when the 
generosity of the visitor is bounded by a dollar, 
after a visit of five weeks, does he hear that we have 
bidden her again, sets the tea things down with a 
thud, and sulks. I know that I am his mistress, and 
should not mind, but mistress is a flattering term, 
and, like Verlaine, when he was elected '^ prince of 
poets," " I take calmly a title to which is attached 
no revenue "; so, under Henry's frown I lose spirit, 
and, if my invitation has not gone, recall it. Nor 
can I welcome with enthusiasm a lady at the mention 
of whose name Marie pulls my hair out by the roots. 
These are little things, but they make for discontent, 
and it is in the power of a person even in indigent 
circumstances to ingratiate herself with servants, 
and so secure a hearty reception, does she deny her- 
self the whole year, barring a week in August per- 
haps, that she may be well with those on whom our 
peace depends. 



VI 
Dinner parties 

Anybody can give a tea or a ball. People, if 
xX there are enough of them, amuse themselves, 
and the hostess need not depepd on even her " last, 
best friend," the supper table. 

Of course, I should not presume to give you my 
own opinion on this delicate matter, but the person 
in whom I have the most implicit confidence tells me 
that the secret can be inscribed in one tiny sentence 
in the palm of the entertainer's hand : '' Short 
menus for your lives. Short and toothsome, set the 
hour at eight, and be yourself going on to another 
function. Half an hour to break down the breast- 
works, and march through the wedding that noon, 
the play that night, and then to the broad avenues 
of common acquaintance." Longer time, and dis- 
cussion will grow into argument, and your dinner 
party will meet the just reward of Mr. Lang's " His- 
tory of Scotland " ; longer time, and some " force- 
ful " spirit will take the floor. 

Two hours is enough. 

And then as to the guests : Madam, your situation 

59 



6o Dinner Parties 

is not without its perils. There are your debts to 
pay, and really the people who have shown you hos- 
pitality appear best in their own houses. 

That ample figure, surmounted with the large, 
meek countenance, she looked remarkably well at 
the head of her own dinner-table, when a bank of 
flowers, and masses of glass and silver lay between 
your plate and hers; but is she to sit on Augustus' 
right, what on earth is he to say to her? Did you 
not promise Augustus? Well, a fooHsh oath were 
best broken. And there is your sister, and there is 
Augustus' sister, and you simply cannot bear the 
sight of people you must see every day with their 
feelings in bandages, the result of wounds inflicted 
by yourself. Above all, one must not be bidden 
without the other, and both are married, and there 
are four seats gone. The case is pitiful. The ladies 
are distilled virtue, but, alas ! how little pure goodness 
does for a dinner party. 

In fact, unassisted virtue has been known, like the 
death of Sheridan, to eclipse the gayety of nations. 

Perhaps you'd best admit that a dinner-party 
should not have philanthropy for its object; and it 
is not given to bestow charity upon the socially deaf, 
dumb, and blind. And you must trample the tie of 
kindred under your feet, and never invite on the 
same occasion more than one member of the house- 
hold. No one of us appears well before our relations. 

In the presence of Jane, who knows exactly what 



Dinner Parties 6i 

did happen, that witty and effective narrative dies 
on my hps. 

Before Janet, the httle story which really owes 
its charm to illustration, as the begonia to its foliage, 
becomes like the withered stalk of Indian maize. 

" One day last week when I was in New York " 
— her clear, arresting gaze brings the quick blush — 
*' Well, not last week, last year " — again that fixed 
look if inquiry — " Well, not I, but a friend of mine " 
— James hems three times. Is it a warning ? Have 
I told it before to the same people — I, most unhappy 
dispenser of hospitality? 

" A man's foes," saith the Scripture, " are of his 
own household." 

There was a time (and I relate it as I would some 
custom preserved in folklore, like the position of 
spirits in the Indian system or the cruel tyrant turned 
into wild parsnip), the time when young women did 
not go to school a quarter of a century, and people 
washed up their own breakfast things in cedar tubs 
and made jelly out of calves' feet, when it was eti- 
quette, did one give a feast, to bid every member 
of a household or none. 

On one occasion, she who addresses you sat down 
with ten law relations, and five blood ones, including 
three sisters and an aunt. 

She was lucky who went in to dinner on the arm 
of an uncle. A cousin caused cerebral excitement, 
but it is remarkable (may it never be your misfor- 



62 Dinner Parties 

tune to experience it) how little your opinion of the 
English Education bill affects the brother in-law who 
sits beside you; and how much like a fool one feels 
when conversing in a society way with one's papa, 
about the church's case against divorce. 

I once had the mortification to hear a remark made 
by a lecturer friend who, just before his speech 
began, had dined under the patriarchal roof of a 
man who invited all his family to meet him. 

He got up before a great audience, stammered, and 
then came out with : '' And Noah, and his wife, and 
his sons and his sons' wives." Such was the obsesr 
sion produced by sitting three hours under a tree 
and its branches. 

A person was once counselling a young man to 
marry a lady whom his friends thought suitable. 
" But she is so tiresome," he objected. *' I have 
taken her in to dinner three times lately, and my 
blood turned to water in my veins." 

*' Then by all means marry her, and you will 
never have to take her in to dinner again as long 
as you live." 

But this does not remove a serious objection to 
matrimony if married people are invited to entertain- 
ments together, because each suffers from a certain 
consciousness of strangeness with what is most fa- 
miliar. I once heard a novelist say that he had never 
been able to write unrestrainedly because, had he done 
soi, his wife would have asked, " How did you come 



Dinner Parties 63 

to know that? " But if the presence of the wife is 
inimical to the exercise of the imaginative faculty, 
how much more is it so to the exercise of a certain 
chivalrous bearing, which, were he alone, might be 
his natural manner to women, but which her presence 
somehow checks. It is true men do not feel particu- 
larly responsible for the general appearance of their 
wives, though Mrs. Ward makes David Grieve ask 
Lucy, the evening after the dinner at Lord Driffield's, 
why she wore queer silk mitts, and a sort of a bed 
gown ; but this unnatural remark is put into David's 
mouth by a woman. Nor do they, with affectionate 
proprietorship and pride, prod us on to tell our best 
stories, or air our pet theories. 

In public a man's interest in his wife generally 
takes the form of dread lest she say something that 
will bore the company and convince his fellows that 
he has married a person of inferior native intelli- 
gence; and his feelings are proclaimed to her at 
least, in unmistakable phrase, such as " Oh, don't 

tell that, it's as old " or, *' If you must tell it, 

tell it properly," or, '' Maybe I'd better tell it, though 
everybody " 

But oftenest he betrays his condition by his air 
of general misery. It is strange that a parent who 
really is responsible for a child seldom feels self- 
abasement when they meet in society ; but a husband 
who has nothing to do with his wife's bringing up, 
the formation of her mind or manners, suffers, when 



64 Dinner Parties 

they are in company together, the agonies of an ex- 
perimenter when his discovery is being tested before 
experts. 

What sort of guests, then, should one invite? 

A good mental condition for a dinner party in- 
cludes just as much culture as is necessary for the 
development of the faculties, but not any burden of 
erudition heavy enough to diminish promptitude or 
elasticity of mind. This ponderous remark is really 
original, but would you think the better of it if I 
ascribed it to Dr. Johnson? If so, I defy you to 
prove that he did not at some period of his life 
say it. 

And you must bring the right sort of people to- 
gether. I myself heard a man boast that he was 
commissioned to take in to dinner on one occasion 
the wife of a man he had shot in a duel ; but, though 
he insisted that his savoir faire bore him trium- 
phantly through the ordeal, I should take it as an 
accident, rather than a precedent for my own 
conduct. 

" It was a small affair," says Sir Grant Duff of 
a dinner he once went to in London, ** but among the 
guests were Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, Sir George 
Trevelyan, and Malet the traveller. It should have 
been extremely brilliant, but it was one of the dull- 
est functions I ever attended. Mr. Gladstone and 
Mr. Bright told stories against each other about the 
extortions of the corn doctors, but Malet declared 



Dinner Parties 65 

that Chevalier, one of the guests, thought they must 
be talking about the corn laws, and strained his atten- 
tion to hear." So you see that, having provided 
against every precaution, as Mrs. Partington ought 
to have said, this dinner of surpassing material was 
a failure. A pretty safe rule when we would bring 
people together is Lowell's : " That we like, likes 
us, no need of any fuss." But are we too well 
acquainted, as are husband and wife or brother and 
sister, our dinner is of a tameness. If most of the 
guests are strangers to each other, the personal note 
is lacking. But liking is such a solid, comfortable 
foundation upon which to build the social fabric. 
" A most agreeable person, whom I enjoy meeting 
at least once in three months." Oftener, and the 
little mystery that is the partially known person's 
halo, would be dispelled. 

But the hostess must do her part. Browning says 
that a lady whose guest he was on a certain occa- 
sion, asked him if he was a poet; and when from 
natural modesty, he hesitated to call himself by this 
exalted name, she hastened to say, " Oh, I beg 
your pardon, you know Byron was one, and Shelley, 
Sir Timothy's son." 

And there was once, and the tact displayed is 
passing commendation, a princess of Babylon who 
gave a dinner party to the witch of Endor, into 
whose charge Nebuchadnezzar, after his accident, 
bad been committed. And this admirable hostess, 



66 Dinner Parties 

to quote the raconteur's own words, par delicatesse 
pour hii, would let nothing appear on the table 
which, in his unfortunate condition, could wound 
his feelings — no beef, not the suspicion of fricasseed 
veal. But on another occasion, from the same source, 
an Oriental scholar, I learn that diplomacy was with 
the guest. It was Friday, and he did not eat meat. 
The hostess was overwhelmed. '' All flesh is grass," 
said the courteous and resourceful visitor, and fell 
to upon Southdown mutton. The subject is so wide 
that we feel like the socialistic young girl graduate 
before the problem of drains. 

So much for the dinner party, about which I might 
have counselled you in fewer words by simply quot- 
ing Thackeray : '' Every dinner is good, if it is 
good of its kind," which I suppose means that every 
dinner is good if there be no tragic combination of 
incompetency with ambition, 



VII 
Convcvsation 

WE were reading aloud Sainte-Beuve, when 
we came upon this sincere expression of 
opinion: "I hke society," said the Duchess of 
Maine, ''because everyone Hstens to me, and I Hsten 
to no one." 

How dehghtful this aristocratic opinion, expressed 
as only the highest nobility have a right to express 
themselves, with the freedom of birth and blood. 
Such would be the uttered sentiment of many, were 
we not held back by a false shame, and a wish to 
please. 

I recollect hearing our once popular clergyman — 
popular before he decided " after a period of self- 
communion and appeals for direction, that it had 
been made plain that he must choose the wider sphere 
of usefulness, St. Barnabas " — define the secret of 
being agreeable, to a number of us who only wanted 
to be told what to do, in the following language : 

" I can probably better illustrate than give my 
opinion in concrete form. My idea of an entirely 

charming person is Mrs. B , she is one of those 

67 



68 Conversation 

always sympathetic and inspiring people who have 
no desire to make themselves heard, but are very 
pleasantly felt." 

Now, of a truth, this favourite of her pastor was 
a fair, blonde lady who, from the prefix before her 
name, must at one time in her life have opened her 
lips to utter the word '' yes," though she might 
have simply nodded her head — a device not un- 
known in our family, for John has adopted it. But 
the white flower of tribute laid at her feet was be- 
stowed by one who evidently shared the opinion of 
the Duchess about listening and listeners. So true 
is this that Jane and I are thinking of making a 
unique reputation by letting the person who begins 
a sentence, prosecute and end the remark without 
interruption; and, damming up our own floods of 
speech, let the speaker's dribble through a flat and 
dusty country, till all is distilled, drop by drop. 

There are rare and beautiful souls in the world, 
jewels rare, rare books, but rarest of all earthly 
things is a completed sentence. It seems impos- 
sible to let her go on. Our own experience was so 
much more apposite, and when our visitor talked 
of her runaway, so much more thrilling. And that 
hotel adventure she is so full of, why the same 
thing — only a thousand times more exciting — hap- 
pened to our own Cousin Mary Matilda. And can 
exhausted nature bear it again, and murdered in the 
telling — the encounter between the ladies Robinson 



Conversation 69 

and Strangeways, that happened on your own back 
gallery ? 

We are companions in misfortune. People have a 
way of telling Jane and me, too, things we told them. 

And as there is nothing as seductive as reform 
(we all know, if we begin to clear up a single drawer, 
enthusiasm spurs us on till every room in the house 
is turned upside down by night, and the family is 
dining in the back yard), I have decided that, in my 
rehabilitation, I will go further than simply keeping 
perfectly silent. I will control the restless gesture 
and the wandering eye. You know, chaste and pure 
as is dumbness, one is not entirely satisfied with the 
irresponsiveness of a stone pillar. Vanity has a 
thousand antennae, and though of course the spoken 
word is always an interruption, as the gourd craves 
water, we long for sympathy, and especially the 
other sex demands it from us. What we should give 
is the flushed cheek, the glittering eye, the long, 
deep-drawn breath. There is an eloquence of the 
body in which neither the tongue nor lips have part. 
And, reader, if you are under the impression that a 
man's definition of a brilliant woman talker changes 
with the times, I am bound to tell you that, for the 
first time in your life, you are mistaken. His true 
definition will always be : '' She is very pleasantly 
feltr 

But although what I am about to say breaks the 
brilliant conversationalist's rule of silence, the friend 



70 Conversation 

in whom I have the most impHcit confidence tells me 
that she has found the following suggestions most 
helpful. When the person has been talking to 
you a long time, and the constant murmur has be- 
come like the humming of bees or the continuous 
roll of surf on a low-lying beach, — when you are, in 
a word, what a detractor would call sleepy, — then, 
should your entertainer pull you up with a jerk and 
say, "What do you think?" repeat the question. 
Ask it very slowly, as if afraid to give so important 
a query an instant and thoughtless reply, and re- 
peat, " What do I think ? " Ten to one, this is a ruse 
on her part to find out your mental condition; and 
being satisfied that she has mesmerised you, she will 
go on; but at any rate the sophistry will give your 
faculties time to rally, and you will find the trail. 

Jane in her would-be sarcastic manner tells me 
that, after having given so many receipts for being 
a good talker, it is now time for me to suggest what 
militates against this art. 

Well, I suppose it must be admitted that nobody 
likes to receive information in conversation, and that 
it is safe to take for granted that everybody knows 
everything but personal gossip; and that all one's 
audience wants is caustic comment. 

A wise conversationalist will avoid referring to 
eventful circumstances in which he or she partici- 
pated. People who were in the Ischia earthquake tell 
me that they have never regained their position in 



Conversation 71 

society since that experience. They are suspected of 
wanting to tell about it. And a poor lady who was 
in the Union Depot explosion in New York, and 
had consoled herself with the reflection that now 
she had something to talk about, says she has never 
been able to get further than the announcement that 
she had been whirled against a stone wall. I know 
that when her eyes reproached Jane with having no 
intellectual curiosity, the latter was ready with the 
well-sounding, but specious remark, '' I like to read 
about what happens, rather than to listen to one who 
participated in some event; because, when I read, I 
can think more clearly for myself." 

For myself, I believe that Jane's conduct was the 
result of the dull resentment one suffers when a 
friend has had an experience denied us, and that she 
felt toward the poor woman as one does when one 
comes across a line quoted in a tongue with which 
one is not acquainted. 

The most tiresome of all talkers is he who wor- 
ries a subject to death. Selden, prince of conversa- 
tionalists, threw out a hint, shot a Parthian dart and 
passed. His talk was not exhaustive, but suggestive. 

In Mr. McGregor's " Life of Gladstone," he men- 
tions that one afternoon on board a yacht, the follow- 
ing were his topics of conversation : " shoeblacks, 
crossing sweepers, Sherlock Holmes, Refuge Field 
Lane, Return of the Jews to Palestine, copper ore, 
Canada, bridges, ventilation, Ecce Homo, language 



72 Conversation 

of sound, Dr. Wolff's travels, the use of the word 
scrupulous, marginal notes on Scripture, and a letter 
from a young man." 

Not to be beaten in experiences by an obsequious 
Scotchman, I will remark that on one occasion, in 
his mother's drawing-room, a small, toothless Amer- 
ican boy looked me in the face and put these ques- 
tions with not a breath between : " What is the dif- 
ference between the characters of Xenophon and 
Aristotle ? What is the meaning of ' stock on 
change ' ? What is the effect of water poured from 
a precipitate distance upon hot rocks? What is the 
meaning of ' oats, small and weak ' ? What is ' the 
basis of ethics ' ? " 

Will anyone deny that a mind which jumps like 
this from valley to craig is more interesting than 
one which bores like a worm, a tiny point deep down 
into the centre of the earth ? 

Then from an intellectual, not a moral, standpoint, 
no talker is entertaining who does not make the 
listener believe what he says. When you tell me 
indeed that you are the author of " Beautiful Snow," 
while your grandpapa wrote the Junius Letters, 
there is no shock to my creduilty. Since they have 
taken away from me my Lucretia Borgia, and given 
me in the place of the fascinating poisoner, an ex- 
emplary housewife, whose only fault was a too 
austere piety and a lack of discrimination in her 
choice of healthy husbands, you can work your will 



Conversation 73 

on me in the matter of history. But when you de- 
scribe costumes I am morally certain you do not pos- 
sess, when you tell me that your oriental lamp was 
sent you by an admirer from the Far East, after I 
mysdf have chaffered for it in a domestic shop win- 
dow; above all, when you relate conversations that 
you assure me have taken place between yourself 
and, say, Mr. Arthur Balfour, when you were the 
guest of crowned heads in Europe last summer, I 
do not believe you, and you bore me for this reason. 
You have, in these witty and (to yourself) most 
flattering talks, mirrored your own person, not that 
of the Premier. When Hans Andersen tells the 
conversation between the dog and the cat apropos of 
the two human lovers, he makes the dog say: 
"And he [the man] said to her [the woman], 
* Come and live with me in my kennel and we will 
gnaw the same bone.' " 

Now, as expressive and able as is your language in 
relating these conversations, Mr. Balfour does not, 
speaking with respect, converse as does the dog or 
the cat; but you have imitated a great though in- 
ferior genius and made him talk like a man, as Lewis 
Carroll makes the Dormouse and the Rabbit talk. 
Unless he was mocking you, and that idea I reject, 
he did not say he " hoped you'd have a good time " 
in London. I am the last person to believe that states- 
men know anything about the laws of their country. 
Only the other day a cousin of my brother-in-law, a 



74 Conversation 

person without social advantages and imperfect edu- 
cation, having Hved all her life with the prospect of 
dying on a Virginia plantation, went to a dinner 
party in Washington. The Senator who took her in 
to dinner was tanked up with inaccurate information 
about the illiteracy of the whites and the superior 
native ability of the ne-groes, and naturally wished 
to irrigate her dusty mind with facts of which she 
was not ignorant. But he did not know his man. 
She faced about, looked him in the eye, and pelted 
him with fragments of the Constitution. The 
rest is silence. So it was not necessary for you 
to say that Mr. Balfour talked the education bill 
or the attack on Lord Lansdowne. But you must 
make him talk English, not American, make him 
himself, not you. " Indeed, my Lord," said Ophelia 
to Hamlet, " you made me believe it," and would you 
interest me, this is your task. " She had a low cun- 
ning," says Lady Mary Wortley Montagu of Queen 
Caroline, '' which gave her an inclination to cheat all 
people she conversed with. And she often cheated 
herself, not having understanding enough to ob- 
serve that all falsehoods, like red on the face, must 
be used sparingly or they destroy the interest they 
are designed to heighten." 

And, I suppose, just here one might venture to 
say: Be sparing of the anecdote, though a good 
anecdote is like an apt illustration in a book of 
travels. When the Swedish novelist Bjornsen was 



Conversation 75 

in this country, he was once the guest of a popular 
club where a brilliant speaker got up and told a side- 
splitting story. Bjornsen laughed. He told an- 
other. Bjornsen smiled. A third. The novelist sat 
in gloomy silence. " But it was very good," chided 
his mentor, "why didn't you laugh?" 

" I am forty years old," said Bjornsen, " and two 
stories are enough." 

Another suggestion : Instead of the old-fashioned 
*' That reminds me," the conversationalist should 
have a friend in the audience who will bring the con- 
versation around to an opening for the story. But 
a friend is not always trustworthy ; he has, in a mo- 
ment of overwhelming temptation, been known to 
tell the tale himself. But a wife is generally to be 
relied on for, to be frank, we have so often been told 
that we " left out the point, let me tell it," that we 
have become diffident of our powers as raconteurs. 
This secondary position seems, however, particu- 
larly suited to the moderate female ambition and I 
am told by an admiring wife that when she has 
brought the talk to the place where she can mention 
in an offhand way, " George, do tell that amusing 
thing I heard you telling last night," she has the 
feeling of partnership of a bellows-blower when the 
musician executes the Moonlight Sonata. 

Gossip mingled with mimicry is always an accept- 
able element of conversation. There is something in 
the discussion of the personal that excites the jaded 



76 Conversation 

interest. And, strange to say, the people who are in 
themselves most dull, are entertaining when subject 
to absent treatment. 

For instance: Jane and I have a relation whose 
point of view is, *' Shirt waists, to button or not to 
button, shall it be three or five? " When she makes 
us one of her not-rare visits, Jane is compelled to 
study her Scripture lesson, and I hear the telephone, 
calling me to Catonsville to see a dying friend. 

But when that most amusing Maude comes over 
and reproduces my relation, even to the set of her 
prim little lips, I would not want better company. 

It is food for thought, this ; how much more enter- 
taining we are when presented through the medium 
of another mind. 

My idea of a conversationalist is a young man 
who was in a summer hotel with us last July: a 
loud-voiced youth with a hearty " Good-morning " 
manner. At the Soldiers* Fair one night — none but 
the brave deserve the fair — he came in late to sup- 
per. " All the youth and beauty have gone," said 
the Baltimore girl with her warm Southern smile, 
" there's nothing lefft for you but the plain and 
elderly." " Well, then, come on," and he held out a 
waiting arm. And when someone was inveighing 
against stupid people in general, in which our young 
gentleman heartily concurred, and the curtain 
dropped, disclosing a lady who was reading in the 
adjoining room, he rushed forward, all blushes and 



Conversation 'jj 

remorse : " Oh," he implored, ''oh, I am sure I 
beg your pardon." 

The guarded utterance of the New Englander is as 
deHghtful as the odour extracted from sweet fern, 
that understatement that is the American's pre- 
eminent gift. I had a slow-moving acquaintance 
with a large body and mind encased in adipose tis- 
sue. He did not like people to ask him questions, 
and one day he came to me to relate a grievance. A 
lady with intellectual curiosity had, it seems, asked 
him how much rent he got for his town house. 
"And how often do you suppose she asked me?" 
He had looked out of the window when she had made 
her earliest interrogation. The expectations of 
Janet's mamma rose high. " Seven, twice seven." 
I guessed the mystical numbers and with the ineradi- 
cable belief of one woman in the capacity of another 
woman to ferret out a secret, I would have hazarded 
seventy times seven, but he held up a fat finger. 
'' She asked me twice." 

But best of all, I believe I like the way one woman 
sometimes talks to another woman under the guise 
of perfect civility. It was once my privilege to hear 
a lady from Virginia recount to a lady from Mary- 
land the social triumphs of her son at Newport in 
the season. '' Didn't he, though, dear Mrs. Carter- 
Braxton-Randolph, didn't he feel the least bit out of 
place, a little embarrassed ? " 

*' Embarrassed, my son embarrassed among fur- 



yS Conversation 

riers, and carpet makers, and real estate agents and 
miners ? Yes, I think he was, but he is a gentleman 
and did not make them feel it." 

And, yes, he presses them hard, — the young man 
from Maine who had been to college and was full 
up to his tonsils with undigested material, — a raw, 
ignorant, yearning youth who comes down South, 
He is a class, and wants to " inquire into your condi- 
tions." I saw him last year, on a Southern planta- 
tion, and at the dinner table he made himself agree- 
able to his hostess. 

" Was there not great degradation during the 
time of slavery? " 

" Oh, no ! they had not been vitiated by reading 
Miss Corelli or even Mrs. Besant," replied my friend, 
" they were a very simple, childlike people." " But 
I didn't mean the ne-groes," he responded thought- 
fully, " to them slavery might have been a helpful ex- 
perience. I mean was it not degrading to you? " 

Well, talking is a gift like another, is born, not 
made. 

I can produce, if called upon, a cousin, little better 
in capacity than an idiot, but whose adventures, re- 
lated by her, excel those of Stevenson, and whose 
naivete equals that of Sterne. And then, but I hope 
you will not demand his society, I have a friend who 
can understand *' The Wings of a Dove," and even 
"What Maisie Knew," and is not entertaining. 
Sometimes I am almost inclined to think that to be 



Conversation 79 

an agreeable conversationalist one must be a trifle 
dull. '' Don't forget," says Sydney Smith, " to put 
in the dough, it's the making of the finest confection- 
ery." And when I say this I have in mind an old 
gentleman, who is not clever, but in whom a sort of 
radiance of benevolence accentuates his kind, cheer- 
ful words, and an old woman, too wise to let her dis- 
cussions of past events, pregnant with wit and sar- 
casm, degenerate into gossip, but who listens, with a 
lovely courtesy and a most beautiful deference that 
almost makes what we say worth while. 



VIII 
/iDannerisms In Conversation 

IF I could convince people that the secret of con- 
versation is silence and intelligent gesture, of 
coiurse all that I am going to say would be super- 
fluous ; but since certain individuals insist on talking, 
I will warn you that there are little mannerisms 
that make the task of listener unnecessarily difficult. 
For instance : there is a trick of speech that is so uni- 
versal that, fatal as it is to conversation, we seldom 
place it till we experience a certain undefinable weari- 
ness after a talk with certain persons. When we tell 
a story, we are not content to tell it once, we tell it 
twice, and does the slightest applause follow, we 
again repeat, adding fresh emphasis as we reach the 
climax. 

Of course, reader, you will say that whereas you 
have your faults, in which noble and almost incred- 
ible confession, I find it hard to agree with you, this 
is not one of them, although you have deplored the 
habit in your dearest friend. 

But a strict scrunity of your conduct the next 
time you repeat one of little Billy's smart sayings, 

80 



Mannerisms in Conversation 8i 

will, I think, reveal to you that the first time of tell- 
ing was only a preparation, — watering the soil, so 
to speak, — while you hardly expect full appreciation 
before it has been related at least three times. Ob- 
servation will, however, inform you that whereas 
dull persons seldom take in any news at first, the 
idea reaches them when repeated; and if it is told 
again vanity revolts. 

When, to illustrate, you, with proper dramatic 
setting, inform me that Bobby, aged three, said he 
knew it was five o'clock because the little bird in the 
maple tree was saying, '' tee, tee," suprise and ad- 
miration may so paralyse my powers that I am un- 
able to appreciate it. But when you are good enough 
to recognise this, and repeat " Yes, he pointed with 
his little finger, and said " (giving me the not un- 
familiar information), my faculties have had time to 
rally, and I can nod and smile. But when you mis- 
take my polite and sympathetic applause for be- 
wilderment, and tell me again, I detest the little 
angel for a bore, and you for an inventor. 

And there is another menace to story-telling that 
one may as well be prepared for. We all have a cer- 
tain set of anecdotes that are a part of our social 
outfit. But as a wary woman makes the same cos- 
tumes do for recurring seasons by warming them 
over, and then taking them to different places each 
year ; so one must guard against repeating the same 
story to the same people. But this glib advice is not 



82 Mannerisms in Conversation 

easily acted upon. The same people suggest the 
same topics. We all remember that when Dr. 
Holmes, most versatile of talkers, went in his youth 
to the Far West, he met a lady to whom he made a 
rather obvious witticism, — how, thirty years passed, 
he revisited the town, saw the same lady, and made 
the same speech. The speech had in fact been dedi- 
cated to her. Neither before nor afterwards had he 
ever made it. So it is with the writer. Whenever 
I see Matilda, though the years lie between our inter- 
views, I find myself telling with zest the particulars 
of my visit to Ouida. My other friends know that 
I have my bag bursting with amusing reminiscences, 
but poor Matilda has little opportunity to form that 
opinion. Somehow, little as they are alike, Matilda 
suggests to me Ouida. I think you had better look 
yourself over, though investigation may result in 
wounds to a particularly sensitive quality. 

In that very clever study of character, '' Tristram 
Lacy," by Mallock, Mrs. Norham, the apostle of 
reform, has a trick of holding her head on one side 
and looking upward. This mannerism had met with 
no consideration at home or in the intellectual ranks 
in which she moved, but upon a day it happened that 
she met the Premier, Lord Runcorn, and his sister 
in a railway carriage. Lady Cornelia Leighton, who 
was of another world, was quite fascinated with the 
unusual posture ; and when they parted, the Delphic 
pythoness heard her remark to her illustrious 



Mannerisms in Conversation 83 

brother : ''I like that trick she has of looking up- 
ward and with her head a little on one side. One 
sees something like it in the pictures of old saints." 
That night when the apostle of reform had returned 
to her own humble dwelling, where she had gathered 
a little flock about her, she bore her head like a 
broken lily; so easy is it to exaggerate a virtue, as 
can be seen in people who colour their faces to per- 
fection the first month, but are like a signboard the 
second. So the upward glance and the distorted 
neck, instead of evoking commendation, called 
forth the following remark from Mrs. Bousefield — 
a lady who represented the common sense of the dis- 
ciples : '' Mrs. Norham," said this direct person, 
'' Mrs. Norham, I hope ye've not suffered from sit- 
ting in those foreign railway carriages. I've noticed 
you hold your head a little on one side. If your neck 
is stiff, ril give ye a cold compress." 

So there is a certain underlying animosity of 
sex between ladies that requires me to warn you 
against these affectations. I suppose that under 
heaven's canopy there is no task as difficult as for 
one female to deceive another female, and, it is fair 
to say, we easily withstand each other's fascina- 
tions, but not so with the sex that, after all, is our 
natural prey. 

I known three sisters who married often and early 
because they had a hesitation in their speech. I 
knew a lady who secured a comfortable home by the 



84 Mannerisms in Conversation 

habit of fainting and being carried out upon stalwart 
shoulders. There is a family on the Eastern Shore 
of Maryland who open and shut their eyes, after the 
manner of expensive wax dolls, and with such 
effect that they are to the male what the basilisk 
is to the frog. And if these anecdotes are not suffi- 
ciently convincing, I have others — such as that of 
the lady who was asked in marriage by several gen- 
tlemen (for where one pastures, others will follow) 
though she was neither rich nor beautiful, because 
she was affected with a trembling of the lids. 

In my inmost heart, I believe this trembling to 
have been the result of disease, but it was unusual^ 
and after a while what was queer began to be looked 
upon as valuable. 

At any rate, a well-established, portly lady, mar- 
ried to a man who secured her not without difficulty, 
has only one sorrow in a sheltered life^ — the neces^ 
sity of keeping up the girlish habit which secured her 
her agreeable surroundings. Her husband is not a 
sentimentalist, but he wants what he paid for. He 
married his wife because her eyelids trembled, and 
not unnaturally he wishes to be possessed of his 
treasure. 

The disease which occasioned my poor friend^s 
peculiarity having been cured, she can look as 
straight as you or I, but her punishment is to con- 
tinue to have trembling lids. At least in the pres- 
ence of her lord, she must assume the trick by which 



Mannerisms in Conversation 85 

she won him; and I, for one, will not affirm that to 
be obliged to be affected before one's family, is not 
a trial. And when the partner of her joys looks for 
this inherited trait in each daughter, and wonders 
why Bertha or Madelaine has not this pretty habit. 
Jane and I look at each other, and with difficulty 
suppress the desire to improve the occasion. 

Therefore let it be understood that these manner- 
isms are for the nonce, and the object once attained, 
they may be discarded as the saurian reptile sheds 
his skin. 

All is fair in love, and one may sputter or blink 
or swoon away, just as one practises the trick of 
putting on a grenadier's cap; but the prey once 
captured, one should be allowed to don one's dress- 
ing-gown and slippers for life. 

And there is yet another mannerism, which even 
we, accustomed as we are to it, find provoking, and 
(it is with mortification we confess) it obtains in our 
own select, blooded portion of the republic. Nor 
can it be pleaded that it is adopted for the praise- 
worthy purpose of establishing one's self in life, as 
may be urged for stammerers, or swooners, or even 
blinkers. It is not even a means of getting into good 
society, such as induced the altruistic Mrs. Norham 
to bow her classic head. Southern women, even 
those whose fate is fixed, use the rising inflection 
when they would make a statement, and in conse- 
quence all conversation is a draft upon the sympathy. 



86 Mannerisms in Conversation 

Two women will meet and the talk run after this 
fashion. 

" And then I went down? " Listener : '' Yes? " 
" And furs are so debilitating ? " Listener : '' Yes ? " 
'' So I came home ? " Listener : '' Yes ? " " But 
decided not to take them off? " Listener : '' Yes? " 
'' Because one is so apt to take cold ? " Listener : 
" Yes, yes ? " By this time all the air in the retort 
has been exhausted, and the second person in the 
dialogue has to take tO' beef tea and peptomangan. 

The habit of uttering a commonplace in the form 
of a question has become so universal that it was 
with more pain than surprise, the other day, that I 
received the greeting, '' The baby took its first walk 
yesterday? " And when this strain on the faculties- 
was followed with, '' And wore its little blue flannel 
wrapper?" the countenance of Janet's mamma as- 
sumed so sheepish an air that she was thankful that 
the photographer was not present to hand her blush- 
ing features down to posterity. 

But probably the most cunning of all ruses to keep 
the conversation in one's own hands is that used 
by your and my acquaintance. She is a woman 
who in an unending stream of platitudes fixes the 
person addressed as if the latter were a fly and she 
an infant Benedict Arnold with a pin. And the 
instrument of torture is an " and er." But lately I sat 
for a wretched half-hour while the fountain at the 
same time flowed forth " summer outing," " fall 



Mannerisms in Conversation 87 

clothes," '' tomato catsup," '' the new church tenor," 
'* moths," and " the children's school." But for the 
** and ers," an agile person might have jumped in at 
the falling inflection which, as the well-taught are 
aware, marks a period. But when the converser 
connects '' homemade yeast " and inductive philoso- 
phy with a footbridge like this, there is no jumping 
in. 



IX 

IFgnorance Us MiSB 

IN my unqualified praise of ignorance, I am con- 
fronted by a complaint urged by those whom I 
hope to influence. 

With the best disposition in the world to be igno- 
rant, they say that all their acquaintances are so- 
learned that they absorb knowledge, and through 
mere atmospheric effect drink in things that give 
them the appearance of being clever, when they are 
really not so. Not definite knowledge, it is true — 
rather the sort which places the Parthenon in the 
centre of Rome, and the Pantheon on the heights 
above Athens, and moans the sins of the impeccable 
Plato, when they are really criticising the conduct 
of the god of the underworld — ^knowledge that 
causes them to be included in the ranks of the in- 
structed, and puts on their shoulders the burdens of 
the learned. 

Now, to be a fool carries with it a reproach. With 
all prejudice in favour of ignorance, I must go so far 
as to admit that much ; but, after mature deliberation, 
I have come to the conclusion that it is an almost in- 

88 



Ignorance Is Bliss 89 

tolerable burden to assume the role of one involved 
in high affairs of culture and worldly wisdom, 
because, in so doing, one is cut off from the candid 
expression of opinion. 

Of course I do not know how it is with you, but 
for my part, I would willingly exchange my inter- 
national fame regarding, well, I will say my ability 
to decipher Egyptian inscriptions — for that reputa- 
tion for weak-mindedness that would enable me, 
under its cover, to tell a certain intimate enemy 
what I think of her parlour furniture. 

She who for vanity or duty's sake puts herself 
under the yoke has been known to dislocate her 
jaws while reading Milton's prose, and I have a 
friend with the highest repute for telling necessary 
social fibs, who confided in me that it is with the 
greatest difficulty that she refrains from blurting 
out such awful truths as : " Your bonnet is a 
fright,'' and '' Thank Heaven, I was out when you 
called." 

Between friends, then, what would your high 
standing as a follower of William Morris, and a pur- 
chaser of " mission furniture " be worth to you, in 
comparison with the joy of freedom to be out with: 
" How I hate those Botticellis — long, lank things 
with hideous faces," or that other sincere utterance : 
" Fm sick to death of moth-eaten Persian rugs, all 
faded out and with holes in them " ; and that bold 
expression : "I perfectly hate that fugue of Bach — 



90 Ignorance Is Bliss 

I'd rather have bees buzzing in my ears "? And (I 
assure you it will go no farther) would you not 
cheerfully resign the anticipated poster of three 
dancing girls in lemon-yellow jumping back and 
forth over a slow fire — an impressionist gem which 
your mother-in-law, who is spending the winter in 
Paris, has intimated will be her gift to you for the 
coming Christmas, for the pure pleasure of going 
downtown with a friend of opinions like your own, 
and buying a bright Brussels rug, with a dog on it 
rescuing a child from drowning? 

No educated person could, under any circum- 
stances, of course, know the rapture of this unloosing 
of steel and cordage, this emerging from mental 
and artistic restrictions, but once an acknowledged 
ignoramus, and draped in the flag of artlessness, 
punctilious observance of rules slides from the laden 
shoulders, and in our own guileless way we may 
discard the blue Canton china, and buy French with 
pink roses on it, and mention to our sister-in-law 
what we think of Tommy's manners, and the forma- 
tion of Ethel's features. 

Frankness, sO' delightful to practise, so impossible 
to submit to, is the prerogative of the ignorant. 
** Angry with Jane!" remarks that connection by 
marriage, whose darlings have been reflected on, and 
whom high-mindedness requires to " smile and think 
of something pleasant," " Why, certainly not — ^that 
irresponsible, silly little thing! " But Jane can tell 



Ignorance Is Bliss 91 

another tale ; the reproach of ignorance is well worth 
incurring for the delight of freeing one's mind. 

Ignorance of foreign languages is a gift that can 
hardly be overestimated. There are conservative 
people who advise the traveller to learn '' I don't 
understand you " in three continental languages, but 
I would not go so far. I would admit nothing. 
Helplessness I have already recommended in gilt 
letters, but helplessness with ignorance will bring 
her who is so endowed to the very pinnacle of 
success. 

Only lately one of our friends went abroad, a lady 
who weighed two hundred pounds and possessed a 
modest sum of spending money. But she was equipped 
with a fund of ignorance that put to the blush 
our small change of school-girl French — a language 
which we all read with facility, but when it comes 
to speaking we find ourselves somewhat embarrassed 
and surprised that in the lapse of years we have lost 
that purely Parisian accent which was the delight 
of the mademoiselle to whom our education was con- 
fided. With her ignorance our friend was encum- 
bered with no silly pride. She took it all " very 
sweetly and very simply," as Mr. Howells would say, 
and, though understanding no tongue but her own, 
did understand that when she had paid for a second- 
class ticket, and then seated herself in a first-class 
chair, though that little uniformed and bemedalled 
French official sang an old and moving story, to 



g^ Ignorance Is Bliss 

which she listened with a flitting blush, with down- 
cast eyes and modest grace, he was powerless to effect 
her locomotion. If one does not comprehend, one is 
not a subject for argument; and when it came, by- 
way of keeping an inflexible rule, to casting two 
hundred pounds of good American avoirdupois into 
the English Channel, the regulations were relaxed. 

To be sure, my friend inferred from the sulphu- 
rous atmosphere that she had excited anger, and it 
may be scorn; but upon that obtuse intelligence, 
those uncomplimentary gestures dropped like the 
gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. To 
be sure, she felt, even through her armour of igno- 
rance, that she was despised; but what sensible person 
would care for the ill opinion of people she had never 
seen before, and would likely never see again, when 
it was a choice between their admiration, and a ten- 
franc piece, and a comfortable journey? We all 
worship in others the traits in which we are most 
lacking, and our well-known subserviency to public 
opinion, perhaps, induces us to reverence too highly 
a friend's calm indifference to what people think. 
But it will be admitted that this skilful avoidance 
of a provoking and unnecessary extortion could not 
have been accomplished, had our traveller been pos- 
sessed of even a store of " rusty " learning. It was 
unadulterated ignorance that brought her through. 

Jane and I entertain such particular ideas about 
matrimony that I really hesitate to use them as a 



Ignorance Is Bliss 93 

final argument in my recommendation of ignorance, 
but this is the fact. Ignorance in woman is to the 
mascuHne mind contemplating, what molasses is to 
the fickle and errant fly. Men say they are afraid 
of clever girls because they are too smart for them, 
an admission that in its absolute veracity would 
gratify the soul of the philosopher, who, in despair 
of finding truth, has declared it to be in a well ; and 
the coward flees to the soft admiring eyes of her 
who will not put him to shame by talking about 
" materialism," or dye his cheeks with blushes by 
asking his opinion of M. Brunetiere's recent article 
on '' The American Spirit." 

Nor is this avoidance of the learned lady confined 
to people who have been to college and played on the 
football team. The professor of sociology will say 
of the Senior Wrangler : '' She is very able, but she 
lacks the childlike spirit. Some people arrive at con- 
clusions by intuition, not through the dry medium 
of text-books." This is in excuse for his running 
off to spend his afternoons with a girl named Daisy 
who has a small, impertinent nose, and whose *' in- 
tuitions," so far from leading her to know how to 
spell '' separate " or " until," shut in her face the 
gates of the first grammar grade on silver hinges 
turning. 

And does one remonstrate, and -urge that Crichton 
would find in the Senior Wrangler a congenial soul ; 
that they could talk about logarithms all the morning, 



94 Ignorance Is Bliss 

and pass the evening discussing the existence of 
matter ; that in a glance she would know a dado from 
a frieze, and chicken from turkey, no matter how 
fancient and well developed the former fowl; he 
would reply with this remarkably well-sounding 
sentence : '' The woman to whom I have given my 
affections has far higher spiritual enlightenment 
than either the Senior Wrangler or even myself." In 
fact, so well is it established that clever men marry 
silly women that our Janet has refused a rising young 
lawyer, lest her intellect be reflected upon, and is 
encouraging a young man, whose constant habit of 
telegraphing instead of writing, with other ominous 
signs, has excited the suspicion, in the minds of 
Janet and me, that knowledge of the three " Rs " 
is not one of his accomplishments. 

Since, then, ignorance weds, and weds the sav- 
ants, the statesmen, the judges, while graduates of 
Bryn Mawr wed mediocrity, it becomes a question, 
" Will you live alone, or with one who is acknowl- 
edged to be your inferior, or will you despise loga- 
rithms and French materialism, and content your- 
self with vicarious acquirements, and the reputation 
of him whose qualifications are, after all, more a 
matter of pride to you than your own? " 

Mrs. Oliphant, whose opinion of men was poor, 
made one of her heroines an idiot, on the principle 
that, as so small a degree of intelligence fascinated' 
the other sex, none at all would be completely floor- 



Ignorance Is Blks 95 

ing. " Innocent," you remember, had two lovers, 
and proved so attractive to the judge that when she 
was tried before him for murder, that dignitary 
changed his harsh and guttural tones to those of a 
cooing dove, and she left the court proved, indeed, 
to have administered a poisoned draught to a lady 
whom she disliked, but free, and the '' recipient of," 
as the newspapers say, a graceful tribute to her 
engaging absence of mind. 

I do not take so extreme a view of the fascina- 
tions of imbecility. I would prefer my James to 
unite himself with one possessed of a reasonable, 
but uncultivated, intellect; and could I choose a wife 
for this somewhat priggish, but unexceptionally cor- 
rect, young gentleman, I would whisper a word in 
her ear : '' Let your comprehension of the simplest 
problem come from him. When he alludes to Plato, 
ask him if he was a nice man ? " And you may drop 
a remark concerning his wife, Xanthippe, and pity 
him that she was a scold. James, with a large and 
patient benevolence, will set you right as to who was 
the legal possessor of that handsome virago, and 
what is more, you will become aware by a most com- 
promising utterance, that he is not making a formal 
call. 



X 
XTbe /iDotipe ot xrrat>el 

IN my opinio>n it was great luck on Othello's part 
that he ever got the chance to mention to Des- 
demona the " antres vast and deserts idle," the 
"anthropophagi" and the men whose heads grew 
beneath their shoulders. If she had not been the girl 
she was, a maiden of spirit, so still and quiet that 
her motion blushed at itself, Desdemona would 
never have sat in the corner and let him tell his ad- 
ventures. She would have broken in at the first 
moving accident by flood and field and made him 
listen, while she told where she spent the summer, 
and how she got her best hat wet at the picnic. Or, 
she would have interrupted with : 

" My noble Sir, one Michael Cassio, 

Lieutenant to your warlike captaincy, did come 

ashore, 
He has had hairbreadth 'scapes i' the imminent 

deadly breach. 
Met the high seas and 'brest the howling winds." 

And if Othello had even so much as alluded to 
96 



The Motive of Travel 97 

being taken captive by the insolent foe, the lady 
would have cut him off at the knees with : 



"Within the leaves of a great folio — I have read 

a tale, 
Of guttered rocks and congregated sands, 
Traitors ensteeped to clog the guiltless keel '* 

Of course it is a matter of individual opinion, but 
for myself, I have never considered the Moor ut- 
terly unfortunate. He had his ups and downs like 
another, and discovered, when it was too late, that 
he had thrown away a pearl of a woman who, if 
pearl stands for rarity, well deserved the title, for 
she allowed him on his pilgrimage to dilate, but not 
intentively. But at least he had not all his travels' 
history for nothing. 

I speak with bitterness, but an Elizabeth of Hun- 
gary would speak with bitterness, if she had suf- 
fered my experience. 

At great expense and with much personal dis- 
comfort, I had just taken a trip to the Grand Cafion 
of the Colorado, but, though scenery, especially the 
scenery of my own country, is especially interesting 
to me, I cannot say that, had I promised to go 
secretly and under vow not to mention where I had 
been or what I had seen, the journey had been taken. 
Would Thoreau have lived his hermit life in the 
Concord woods, had not his solitude been sweetened 



98 The Motive of Travel 

with the thought that Margaret Fuller and Emerson 
were filling the world with praises of his love of 
seclusion? Did not the very martyrs find it less 
hard to die under the glare of the Roman sunshine 
^nd the gaze of the wondering multitude, in the 
great amphitheatre, than in some lonely cell, where 
their very courage was looked down upon by unsee- 
ing walls ? 

Well, the surpassingly beautiful region was vis- 
ited, we got home, and Janet's mamma attempted to 
pour out her experiences upon the household of a 
neighbour, of whose respectful attention she was 
sure in consideration of the presence at a recent en- 
tertainment of a valuable epergne lent them for that 
occasion. What, then, were her feelings when the 
eldest son of the family, a solemn, consequential per- 
son, who confined his own outings to Druid Hill 
Park Sunday afternoons, snatched the words out of 
the traveller's mouth, and with great eagerness and 
no lack of dull detail, told what a friend of his had 
seen on the same trip ? There I sat, all my thunder 
stolen, while the creature retailed, not his own ex- 
pensive and arduous journey, but that of another 
and an absent voyager. And when I would have 
ventured a word of correction, or perhaps an ad- 
dendum, my remarks were received with a shake of 
the head and a depreciatory — '' Perhaps so, but 
Bangs didn't tell it that way, and Bangs is a man 



The Motive of Travel 99 

who is apt to take in all the show wherever he sees 
it." 

When the interminable evening was over, Janet's 
mamma vowed a vow. In future her journeyings 
should be from the blue bed to the brown, like those 
of the Vicar of Wakefield's wife, and if ever again 
she were tempted to take a trip across the continent 
that cost five hundred dollars, she would remember 
that young man and his cheap way of getting atten- 
tion, and let her friend Bangs do the sight-seeing. 

It was while smarting under this experience that 
I succeeded, though with the exercise of strategy, 
in persuading an old friend to give me her attention 
while I related it. But I did not even have the poor 
satisfaction of feeling that even this episode in my 
career was unique. She took some time about it, my 
poor friend, and she also found in me an auditor 
who showed symptoms of restlessness, but it finally 
came out that the summer before she had had a car- 
riage accident and fractured her skull. After all her 
pains, she hoped to extract what balm she could 
from the wound and naturally expected the distinc- 
tion accruing from misfortune. But she did not 
know this world. No sooner did she begin to open 
her lips to recount the horror when every woman in 
the room dashed in upon the narration with a trag- 
edy of her own, before the enormity of which, her 
simple little skull fracture, by an upset over a preci- 
pice, shrank to dirnensipns so small that you would 

LofC. 



loo The Motive of Travel 

have had to put it under a microscope to see it. And 
if, by ill luck, an unfortunate was present who had 
not been saved by the interposition of the angels 
themselves in their own persons, she was not cast 
down by that. Fate had supplied her with a relative 
who had undergone the worst. More, if an un- 
scrupulous Providence had denied her this boon, 
like the women who describe surgical operations of 
which they have read, she too sought distinction 
from the pages of literature. My acquaintance tells 
me that one woman made her listen to a carriage 
accident that she had gleaned from a three-volume 
novel, and that, while she was extracting this plum, 
she took occasion to relate the intricate plot. The 
listener went to her own house, more than ever de- 
termined never again to risk her life in the hope 
of exciting interest in herself among her friends. In 
fact, though she does not like to read, she has almost 
resolved to take to that triste resource, and, when 
she would claim an audience, cull her adventures 
from a romance. 

Jane sometimes reproaches me with a desire to 
probe the situation and find out just how bad things 
are. Whatever my motive, I will give you the bene- 
fit of an experiment. We went to Europe, passed 
the summer, and when nearing our native city, we 
made this arrangement : we would visit our friends 
in a circle, and we would make no reference to our 
foreign trip, but wait for some one of them to make 



The Motive of Travel loi 

inquiries. We would let the hostess put the open- 
ing questions: '' Where have you been? " '' What 
have you seen?" ''Tell us something of your 
travels? " 

Our first call was on an old friend. She met 
us with hearty greetings; was delighted to see us, 
had missed us all summer, and wished we had gone 
to a place called " Bute's," a railway station on the 
Pennsylvania road. Here we were asked to enjoy 
vicariously a colonial tea party and a fair, gotten up 
to build a monument to a — well, it was a monu- 
ment and a fair. My friend was not clear whom the 
wood and stone idol were to commemorate, but the 
fair was graven in letters of gold. When we were 
leaving she asked — as if the last drop of personal 
interest had been squeezed when she put the lagging 
question — whether we had found it hot in town. 

Our next venture was upon an eager, enthusiastic 
creature, who had been to the Buffalo Exposition 
during our absence. She was good enough to de- 
scribe the electric display, and I really believe that if 
I knew my devotions as well as I have come to know 
how the light came up on the lake, and the flush red- 
dened the sky, and the band played " Nearer my 
God to Thee," while there was not a dry eye on the 
beach — if, as I said, either Jane or I could ever 
attain to the glibness in these exercises that is ours 
concerning this daily phenomenon, neither of us, in 
our old age, would be left naked to our enemies. 



I02 The Motive of Travel 

But it is right tO' say that we got no chance to 
water arid fields with our own clear stream. For 
all O'f Hattie Daws, we might as well not have slept 
out in that hut near the Mer de Glace to see the sun- 
rise on the snow-clad mountains. When she said 
good-bye, she hazarded — '' Well, I suppose you spent 
your summer as usual, with your Aunt Caroline 
down in Nottaway." " I am more than ever deter- 
mined to take no further trouble for people," said 
Jane bitterly. " Next summer I will go to see Aunt 
Caroline and let Hattie Daws spend her money in 
Europe." But it is right to mention that, in making 
this impetuous plan, Jane had not reckoned with our 
Aunt Caroline. 

Then another thing. I have found that, whereas, 
a propoised trip to one's relations, who live deep in 
the country, does not give offence, the idea of 
crossing the water, when entertained by a friend, 
are we ourselves going to " sl quiet place for rest," 
has an inflaming effect, and tends to the decrease 
of popularity. I mentioned on one occasion, to 
a lady who was a patron of the arts and to 
whom I looked for sympathy, that I expected to 
pass the month of July in Rome. " Well ! " she 
exclaimed, her eyes full of compassion, ^* I do in- 
deed pity you! Rome? In hot weather? The 
fever ! The mosquitoes ! The dirt ! " And then 
I think this good woman made a mistake. If she had 
only stopped just here, content to have plunged two 



The Motive of Travel 103 

enthusiastic persons from a giddy height of pleasura- 
ble anticipation to a sandbank on the coast of North 
Carolina, all had been well, but she would not let 
well enough alone — and there you are. " I mysel f 
am going to stay right here this summer," she said. 
" I need the time to digest all I have read and heard ; 
but my grandmother is going to England next month 
— for the climate." Speaking with respect, she 
should not have said it. She had no grandmother, 
and though there are circumstances when it is per- 
missible to invent one, such as a desire to become a 
Colonial Dame, or to marry into the Virginia aris- 
tocracy, I do not think that this was the occasion to 
unearth her. Jane and I experienced pleasurable 
emotions, produced by one angry and without 
weapons proper to inflict upon us serious wounds. 

Should one, then, travel? One should travel as 
one takes small doses of strychnine, not for the mo- 
mentary effect, but for the general health. One 
should see things for the sake of others, but it should 
be done tactfully, as one gives presents at Christmas, 
not in one's own person^ but through Santa Claus. 
An ingenious being might let out, under severe 
provocation, that he had climbed the highest point 
Oif the Himalaya range, but it should be done to aid 
another in the purchase of snowshoes, or a camping 
outfit. The disclosure should never take place unless 
that other is in need of advice which will disarm 
his resentment, occasioned by the fact that what he 



104 The Motive of Travel 

is going to undertake has already been attempted 
successfully. 

Still there is a way of journeying that is for 
our own sakes and yet for the sake of others, and 
it does not wound or irritate. It was described to 
us at twilight, the receptive hour, and by a quiet 
person, who has herself a sort of inward brightness, 
that is not of the sun, but an inferior quality, like that 
which sleeps in the soft hues of an Eastern rug. 
Two or three years ago, she said, a young girl whom 
she knew, a creature all fire and dew, alive in evfery 
nerve of her strong young body, loving the earth, 
the sea, the sky — all the beautiful things in which 
the ardent soul may steep itself — this young girl 
found that she was growing blind. From the 
first it was hopeless, but the decay of vision was 
slow, comparatively. As soon as she realised her 
doom, she went to a specialist and bade him tell 
her how long it would be before she was to 
take her last look on the dear, green earth. 
" In about a year." With that assurance she 
made her plan. She went to Europe, and there 
she passed the twelve short months in patient 
memorising of pictures, scenery, architecture, fixing 
on the retina of her mind the highest expression of 
the sculptor's and the painter's genius, and of nature 
in her loveliest moods; not surfeiting her spirit or 
fatiguing her body, but quietly, without haste, with- 
out restlessness, imprinting on her very soul the 



The Motive of Travel 105 

memories which were to fill the granaries of that 
soul against the famine. This strange, pathetic 
gathering of the summer driftwood for the winter 
fire occupied all her waiting hours. We can fancy 
her gazing down the Chamouni valley, with the sun 
shining on the iridescent snows, or stopping to look 
long, tenderly, on the loveliness oif the Greek theatre 
at Taormina. And so they passed, but not in vain 
repining, all the dear, full days. And when the 
darkness fell, it is consoling to think that the sweet 
eyes looked their last upon the face they loved best, 
the flower they loved best, the scene where she 
had deepest drunk O'f joy. For myself, I cannot 
but believe that on that fond and faithful gaze were 
photographed the outlines most dear, and that in 
after years, she will have but to love dearly and wish 
ardently, to see them all again. And now, so my 
friend told us in the twilight, though months have 
passed in which she has dwelt in total physical 
gloom, this young girl preserves her bright serenity. 
Its secret is a mind stored with lovely impressions. 
Her memory is a gallery hung with the treasures of 
nature and of art. And when she would look upon 
them, she has only to recall the last patient year, 
when, like the Lady of Shalott, she was weaving her 
web. 



XI 

%ovc'B Catecbtem 

I SELDOM go over the list of my married ac- 
quaintances without thinking how much bet- 
ter I would have been to^ them than the provi- 
dence who presides over their fortunes. I was 
saying something like this to Jane, — regretting that 
H hadn't married his wife's sister or her inti- 
mate friend instead of the person whose outward at- 
traction consists in looking like a rabbit, — when I 
was interrupted by the remark : " The success of a 
marriage must be decided from the point of view. It 
is not how you, in your omniscience, look at it ; it is 
how they themselves regard it, that is important. 

Besides, if you give him time, H will marry 

the younger sister, and perhaps also the intimate 
friend." 

When Jane makes well-sounding remarks like 
this, I prepare to hear her say something different, 
and this is what she said : 

" Women are so much more practical than men — 
so much less romantic — have so much more common 
sense that, but for the silly custom that requires them 

io6 



Love's Catechism 107 

to be chosen instead of making a choice, there would 
be few disastrous marriages. No woman really 
does make a choice, you know. Her parents urge 
her on, or a friend manufactures a halo round his 
head. For myself, I may be singular in this re- 
spect, but for myself, I never considered it as making 
a choice when frantic people with pistols in their 
pockets and threatening suicide offered us marriage. 
And so I can't help deploring that it is all as it is." 
Jane has steel-grey eyes, and when they are dark- 
ened with pity or regret, it is like looking into a 
violet's depths. 

We were both thinking of people we love, of that 
vibrant human creature with the beautiful, grateful 
eyes. She was made to comfort, to sustain; and 
her capacity for happiness would have overflowed 
her own home, into the street, into the world. 

She is not even now, in her sorry straits, a bad 
woman ; but she is not a very good one. One cannot 
palliate and excuse and finally defend what is evil 
in one we love, and suffer no change. She would do 
a friend and even an enemy a splendid, self-im- 
molating service, and she would pluck the feathers 
out of her breast for the children and for Harry; 
but she is not what we would have planned for her, 
had we started her on her long journey. And there 
is Muriel, for whom I cannot wish a long life, hard 
as it is to see what is young and lovely sink power- 
less into that impenetrable darkness, that profound 



io8 Love's Catechism 

silence. She is a tall and stately young person, who 
reminds me of Mademoiselle de Mersac, and whom, 
somehow, one expects to see in a pale primrose silk 
with steel ornaments on hair, neck, ears, flashing 
with every turn of the head, as Jeanne de Mersac 
was dressed the night of the ball. She has, like 
Jeanne, too, an undoubted presence, but she is not 
always the same thing. Sometimes her lips are 
curved in a smile of innocent candour, then a touch 
of disdain finds its way into the guileless sweetness. 
Sometimes, with her pale face, her drooped eyelids, 
that grave, inscrutable curve of her lips, she looks 
like the Moma Lisa. And her eyes can call, can 
laugh, can weep, or they can become stone, and sleep 
for days together. 

Such a woman, wrapped in her maiden reverie, 
walking in the dreamy path of illusion, is not for 
love or life. She is going to be married to a keen, 
self-suflicient man of the world, who, after the regu- 
lation time, will gO' back to his commonplace life. 
In a month or two her dream will have faded, and 
she will come down to breakfast with a sad, it is 
possible, a reproachful countenance, which we all 
agree is the unpardonable sin. 

I would not lift a finger to bring it about, but to 
Jane I have said, thinking of our Muriel, ** There 
are worse things that can happen to us than an early 
death." 

And Jane's seems a very trite, a very aged remark, 



Love's Catechism 109 

but men are much less fitted to choose for them- 
selves than women are. Ten to one, a man's mar- 
riage comes by accident. 

There is B , the dreamer, sensitive, proud, 

with such acute perceptions that one likens him in 
the spiritual world to Thoreau in the world of 
nature. And so great is his charm that he might 
have married any of you. He could have lured you 
with his shepherd's lute and his rich, resonant voice, 
but it fell upon a day that he met a small, pale woman 
with a little mouth, and eyes which his poetic tem- 
perament found, as did the obdurate Paul in " Good- 
bye, Sweetheart," were those '' of a shot partridge." 
I saw him walking yesterday under her watchful 
eye. She speaks of him as " My husband," and she 
were bold who would dispute it. Does he repeat 
poetry to her by the driftwood fire, as he had planned 
to do when he dreamed of love? Or take her long 
tramps over the quickened hills these soft April 
afternoons? If he had but listened tO' Jane and to 
me, who had seen her without her dotted veil, and 
in her close little boudoir that smelt of patchouli ! 
But he did not listen, and now she turns away his 
eyes and hers, as is natural — ^the small exacting 
creature. . . He should not have married her. He 
should have married one I know who would have 
worshipped him and fended for him as she does for 
the poor soul whose helplessness moved her pity. 
Or, better still, he should have married Muriel, on 



no Lovers Catechism 

whose spirit he would have played like the wind 
through an 3eolian harp. 

Jane said, and I agreed with her, that men are less 
fitted to choose a matrimonial partner than women; 
and yet, when we have gotten our proofs together, 
I am almost ashamed to present them. Homo sum, 
and though this is only in a sense true, I have a re- 
spect for humanity which prevents their being totally 
alien to me. For instance: I knew a man who 
married three sisters consecutively, and finally — I 
say " finally,'^ but who knows — married his wives' 
first cousin. Someone, ignorant of his unique his- 
tory, asked him if he had not married a '' Miss 
Jones ? " "I always marry a Miss Jones," he replied 
with enthusiasm. 

Another can't resist the perils oi propinquity, and 
marries the person, if of the opposite sex, who hap- 
pens to sit next him at his boarding-house table. 
Or, from a manly spirit of opposition, he marries 
the girl his sister went to school with and '' per- 
fectly detests." It was the recommendation oif her 
daughter-in-law, given by the Marchioness of Har- 
tletop, that when Miss Grantly entered the family, 
" the dear child saw nothing and heard nothing that 
she should not hear." Perhaps this sentiment lies 
deep at the root of the popularity of deaf and short- 
sighted wives, to whom I have more than once seen 
poems addressed by adoring husbands. 

Now this accumulative evidence puts the working 



Love's Catechism 1 1 1 

of providence in a humiliating light. I insist that 
Jane and I could have managed better. People are 
too much interested to choose their own husbands 
and wives. It is like a sick man prescribing for his 
own case, a lawyer being his own advocate. If I 
were a marriage broker, I should match dispositions 
and tastes, and so secure happiness in companion- 
ship. Of course one could find out a good deal 
about one's prospective bride or groom by talking 
to the little brother, the maid or valet, the dress- 
maker, the old schoolmates. But there is a preju- 
dice against spying, which we suffer from; so I 
should put in every lover's hand a catechism in which 
are printed questions about tastes and ideals. 

For instance : since where one is to live is an in- 
finite source of matrimonial discussion, let query 
No. I be, Which do you prefer, town or country? 
A person in love will, of co'urse, try to discover the 
preferences of the beloved, and will be ready to cry 
for the green fields and solitude or the city's busy 
mart, as the loved one indicates. But even a lover 
hesitates to set himself down in black and white, 
knowing that in after years he will be confronted 
with this declaration, while a lady's written opinion 
upon this important subject would enable a some- 
what cautious suitor to cry off before it is too late. 

Another of the chief causes of matrimonial dis- 
content is a difference of opinion about society. A 
man who has not passed an evening at home since 



112 Love's Catechism 

he left college will marry for the sole purpose ol 
standing in front of the fire from eight to eleven and 
haranguing his women kind. The prospect of din- 
ing in another man's house reduces him to the deep- 
est gloom, or incites him tO' rebellion. If his wife 
is a social creature, she gives lunches to women, and 
frequents afternoon teas ; but she seldom ventures to 
quicken his thirst for solitude by asking people when 
he is expected to be at home. If then the swain 
objects to what he would call a butterfly or a gad- 
about, let him mark this question in the catechism 
with red ink. The woman eating her heart out for 
a little commingling with her kind, the man strutting 
up and down the hearth-rug talking about the 
tariff, is so useful an element of the literature of fic- 
tion that one hates to deprive the novelist of his thun- 
der by alluding here to the situation. But it is grati- 
fying to know that not all women need succumb. 
Jane and I know a young lady of decision of charac- 
ter, who married a man whose life had been lived, and 
whose orange had been squeezed. She stayed at 
home with him, immuring her youth and beauty with 
his age, for three years; and then she put him in 
the third story, locked the door and placed the key 
in her pocket. Now and then a passer-by can hear 
him chirp like Tithonus, and with a fine irony she 
calls him her " cricket on the hearth." 

Nor from a false feeling ol delicacy should cer- 
tain peculiarities fail to be investigated; for after 



Love's Catechism 113 

marriage all sorts of painful discoveries will be 
made. For instance, we had a friend who found 
out, on returning from her wedding tour, that her 
husband had forty pairs of trousers, and demanded 
house room for them all. And if this tale is not 
sufficiently pregnant with warning, I will relate 
another of an acquaintance whose husband never 
allowed her to sell or exchange his old shoes or 
his overcoats for china vases or the seductive 
contraband linen which Italians bring round to 
people's back doors, giving even untra veiled per- 
sons an opportunity to cheat the government. 
And it is well here to press the question : Are you 
a devotee to sport? While no amateur sportsman 
ever added a minnow or a reedbird to the family 
breakfast-table, crafty men have been known to de- 
clare themselves such, that they might keep all their 
old hats, old shoes, old cravats, against the time 
they are '' going fishing or hunting." And I should 
look sharply at the man who is used to lots O'f room. 
Jane knows a harmless-appearing North Carolinian 
whose bride found her best hat on the floor, where 
he had cast it in a rage because she had put it on 
his top shelf. These ruses to keep their things, 
though threadbare, are singularly effective with 
loving wives. Candidates for matrimony should 
investigate before they are weakened by marital 
affection. 

What books one likes, is a pretty sure indication 



114 Love's Catechism 

of character. We had a friend very much in love 
with a young man who seemed unobjectionable, but 
who had a passion for reading lives of Jeremy Ben- 
tham and his economic successors. We said, " He 
will be methodical, strict, and make you go to churcli 
Sunday mornings." Neither Jane nor I are women 
to say, '' I told you sO'," but it is not without grati- 
fication that we see her pass at eleven o'clock hot 
July mornings directing her steps to St. Barnabas, 
nor do actual tears flow when she tells us that" in our 
house breakfast is on the table at 8 a. m."" . . And 
if the plaintiff will condescend to take advice from 
the defendant, do not marry a woman who likes 
Dickens or Mark Twain. The taste betrays humour, 
and humoiur in woman is not a safe domestic quality. 
. . . And a girl, on her part, should not consider the 
suit of a man who owns to a love of fiction. Why 
a novel is considered unmanly reading, and why 
if his wife gets one for him, she should think it 
necessary to explain to the librarian that he only 
reads fiction as a sedative when he is kept awake 
by his profound thoughts, we will know when we 
know the lost art of colouring. Even Jane and I are 
apt to disclaim a love of light literature on the part 
of our men folks, and when John was absorbed in 
" Mamie's Lover," we screened him from the house- 
maid by making him read it within the leaves of 
''The Story of a Play," which Mr. Howells has 
bid us know is not romance, but truth. 



Love's Catechism 1 1 5 

It is admitted that when people once fall in love, 
the catechism is thrown away. A person in love 
will say anything. One of the favourite confidences 
of lovers is, " Do you think so? " with delighted 
surprise, " Why, I have thought so all my life, but I 
never dreamed that anyone else did." Or, " Are 
yO'U fond of that poem ? You are ? Now that is the 
strangest experience. I have loved it since I could 
love anything." . . Jane and I know a nice girl mar- 
ried to a captious little man of whom she unblush- 
ingly asserts : " William and I think exactly alike." 
If she had really thought William's thoughts she 
would have been to this day Miss Matilda Brown. 
And I know another girl who would run all over 
the tables and chairs and finally perch on the mantel- 
piece under, it is true, the severe provocation of a 
threatened visit from a mouse, who spent the night 
in a locked wardrobe under the craven fear that she 
heard someone in the back porch, whose wrists were 
too slender to hold a mallet, and who had sun- 
stroke if she went shopping in May, — I know such 
a girl, I repeat, who, under the impulse of sudden 
love, played golf in August, patted her lover's blood- 
hound, and expressed a desire to live in a place in 
the Rocky Mountains called Bloody Gulch. . . I 
heard a man who could not tell " Dixie " from 
" Star-Spangled Banner " declare, under the in- 
spiration of passion, that chamber music was his 
delight, and that he would prefer assisting at a 



1 1 6 Love's Catechism 

fugue of Bach to sitting in his club window Sunday 
morning and seeing all the other men go to church. 

Sincerity in expressing community of taste is not 
to be looked for in people in love, and their senti- 
ments are to be regarded as perjuries, which, as De 
Quincey says, excite a misplaced humour in Jove. 

After matrimony one returns to one's original 
opinions, and then, too late, one regrets the cate- 
chism. Aware of this fact I advise each candidate 
for matrimony to send a heartbroken poem to the 
object of the passion with a postscript explaining 
that as, under the distressing circumstances, it is im- 
possible to get at the truth of either party's real 
tastes or opinions, the writer has decided to say 
good-bye. And then, if I were he, I would exchange 
a neat little set of questions with some dispassionate 
person, recommended by her maid, her desk mate, 
her dressmaker, — ^all of whom have the amplest 
opportunity of knowing her, — and I should get her 
to reply to them with candour. 

And one of these days when you both want to go 
to Europe, both like oatmeal, both prefer mahogany 
to oak, and both sincerely and without reserve dis- 
like the people next door, you will thank Jane and 
me for this advice. 



XII 

Sbottlb Momen iPropo6c 

MY Janet asks it, looking straight into my eyes 
with her unbHnking, unshrinking blue ones. 

To tell the truth, when I look at the child — strong, 
wholesome, candid, a creature without a devious 
way, all open rolling ground, like a stretch of Kansas 
prairie, yielding interminable stretches of Indian 
corn, tall, vigorous, whispering utility in every 
wave of its graceful stalks — when I look at the child, 
as I say, I demand of heaven why it gave me a 
daughter like this, who is much too good for me, 
instead of the little girl next door, who is not good 
enough, but the kind I'm used to. 

Janet belongs to a large class of women who hon- 
estly prefer the single life, if only with the single 
life they could have the honours universally accorded 
to the married. To be sure our girl misses exclusive 
affection less than would Jane perhaps, because she 
has contracted a devoted friendship with an un- 
pleasant-looking person named Martha, whom she 
met in college, and has forced upon her family under 
the threat that if she is not '' lovingly welcomed," 

117 



1 1 8 Should Women Propose 

our only daughter will hire a bachelor apartment, 
and give lessons on '' digestible foods " to her young 
gentlemen- and lady-acquaintances. Martha, she 
tells us, has a " beautiful soul," and as I, too, have 
found the phrase useful — in describing John — I 
really have no consistent objection to make to it. 

Still, she misses things. She would like to go 
where she pleases without an elderly, panting female 
in her wake, or a younger, prettier one, on whom the 
title chaperon sits lightly. She would like to wear 
the ancestral pearls on her round white thoat, she 
would look well in sables, and certainly she would 
adorn black velvet. 

But these to her are minor matters. What she 
wants is not the sofa — place of honour in the con- 
tinental drawing-room, not the seat on the host's 
right hand, not even does she yearn to '' clear the 
drawing-room," but she wants the deference and 
respect accorded the married woman. 

And it is provoking that no matter how sensible 
the unwedded Kate may be, and how silly Mamie, 
the fact of " Mrs." before Mamie's name confers 
upon her at least the credit of understanding. 
Whom did the Archdeacon consult on the momen- 
tous question of whether or not Henry Grantly was 
to have his allowance stopped, but '' that dear girl 
who has married so brilliantly, and been such a 
delight and comfort to her family." And yet when 
Griselda was a maid, she was esteemed dull; and 



Should Women Propose 1 1 9 

the Archdeacon had looked at her and sighed, and 
wondered how so intelhgent a parent had produced 
so stupid a child. She to whom nobody listened 
before this prefix was hers by right, is granted re- 
spectful attention, while Kate, to whom many have 
piped, though she has not danced, is set down as 
unable to give an opinion. 

More, to her who is free, her very freedom is 
the opportunity of the married. As she is supposed 
to be a stray creature with folded arms and empty 
heart, the real prisoner gives her all her chores to 
do, and fills up the blank hours with such diligence 
that the unmarried woman is apt to have to darn 
her own stockings after midnight Saturdays, and 
get to church panting like Orestes pursued by the 
furies. 

But Jane tells me, and certainly she has had the 
most extensive opportunities to know, that these 
are after all material requirements; and she is per- 
fectly willing to nurse the children through unpleas- 
ant infantile diseases, and stay with the darlings 
while their mamma goes to the theatre under the 
appeal : " Won't you, Jane? You know I never can 
do anything now; I am all tangled up.'' 

The thing that stings is the provoking assump- 
tion of superiority of the wedded, which has goaded 
more than one woman with a distinct aversion to 
matrimony into entering it that she may add to her 
privileges and prerogatives. The phrases are fa- 



I20 Should Women Propose 

miliar, *' As a wife and mother I say what I do," 
*' As a wife and mother I have feeHngs it is impos- 
sible for you to understand." Well, I don't suppose 
we can help it. To preen one's self upon these per- 
fectly natural and not unusual distinctions between 
women and women is common to the sex. These 
expressions are in fact as old as the age of Pericles, 
and had been often used in the hearing of Sophocles 
in his own domestic circle. How else did he know 
enough to make Dejanira, in his tragedy of the 
*' Maidens of Trachis," when the vestals come 
about her to console her, say, '' You are but girls, 
and know not the heart of a wife and mother." 

What, then, is the remedy ? An intelligent person 
ought to get at a remedy for every ill. Now, reader, 
would you like me to say what sounds well, and 
.what you want me to say, or would you like an honest 
opinion ? 

Well — since you force it from me — ^but stay, there 
are expedients. People, to add to their dignity, 
have adopted " Mrs." I think Pamela did, and all 
the heroines of Mrs. Sherwood's Moral Tales. As 
best my recollection serves me, " Mrs." Patty Peace 
was six years old. Then it was almost universally 
used by ladies who acknowledged to forty (I may 
remark in passing that the number of matrons was 
not perceptibly increased by this social regulation). 
Dr. Hale proposed that an independent girl buy 
a handsome, life-like dummy, and take him around 



Should Women Propose 121 

with her. He assures us that his silence and lack 
of responsiveness would not attract the slightest com- 
ment, or cause her embarrassment, as being in the 
least different from the average escort. . . And 
Ouida tried to lift the burden of sex by proposing 
that girls marry very rich aged gentlemen, or very 
seriously wounded gentlemen with property. This 
idea at once became popular — as an idea, though 
dying persons of the male sex, possessing large 
estates, were not to be found on every doctor's list. 
Especially in Virginia, where the obloquy of being 
an old maid rested heavily, the suggestion was 
greeted with enthusiasm. I suppose there is no harm 
in telling it now, it is so long ago, and — well, I feel 

like telling it — a poor fellow died in C county, 

and five girls who had an unreasonable but deep- 
rooted aversion to matrimony, appeared at the 
funeral, dressed in widow's weeds. Not that they 
pretended to be married to him, but betrothed, since 
betrothal carries with it many of the honours, and 
much of the dignity, of marriage. . . One of the 
supposititious widows was a relation of ours, and she 
told Jane that she never felt so mortified in her life 
as when first one, then another, till all five women 
trailed up the aisle, draped figures of grief, and sat 
in the front pew. 

These most ingenious plans, you see, having fallen 
through, I do not believe there is anything to do 
about it, but accept the inevitable and marry. I think 



122 Should Women Propose 

I have proved to you, however feeble your reasoning 
power, that men do not care whom they marry ; and 
they never marry the right person. I have told you 
how their choice is governed by opposition, pro- 
pinquity, habit. A woman, on the contrary, always 
has a reason for taking this step. It may not be 
a high reason, it may be because he is rich and well 
placed, well born and executive, maybe because he 
loves her, or she loves him, but she has a reason. 
The stolid, stuffy girl will choose the stolid, stuffy 
man; and she whose soul is in velvet carpets 
and quartered oak, will find in them her spirit's 
home. 

Like plays with like, and woman, with her lack 
of sentimentality, perceives it and acts upon it. No 
woman was ever heard of who married three 
brothers in succession and then a first cousin, be- 
cause she had gotten used to dinner at five, and the 
way the back parlour looked. She is even able to 
resist the young man who comes with regularity 
to collect the gas bill, and I myself have seen a hos- 
pital nurse who did not marry the beardless interne 
with whom she dressed wounds. 

In a word, a woman knows what she wants, and 
loves substantial qualities like character and brown 
stone fronts, intellect and rubber tires. Is it not, 
then, absurd — the custom that permits her to select 
every article in her home, from the doormat to the 
bric-a-brac, from garret to basement, and then for- 



Should Women Propose 123 

bids her to name the person she dutifully calls its 
** master " ? 

A man who cares nothing about a house, and 
very little who keeps it, may go out, and, by holding 
up his finger, get a bevy of beauties that would take 
the prize at any county fair. The woman, to whom 
husband and home are the whole world, must sit 
and wait, like the little Sister in Solomon's song, 
" for the day in which she shall be called for." 

" But," says some relic of mediaevalism, " she may 
pick and choose; under existing conditions, every 
girl chooses among her suitors." " Among her 
suitors," granted you, in the sense that she chooses 
when half a dozen chairs are brought to her, and she 
is told she may have one of the lot. Who cares, 
pray, for any chair, when she is restricted to those 
that are brought to her? That she may not go out 
and look for them creates in her the feeling that 
she has no mind for chairs, whereas, if she were 
allowed full liberty to choose where she wills, she 
would make a better bargain with half the money. 

Now, last year all the clever, rich, Christian young 
men who got married were under age, and people 
talked dreadfully about improper influence. To be 

sure no one dared openly to say, " Belinda B 

asked Harry H to marry her," but they de- 
clared that Mrs. Billy Martin, Belinda's great friend, 
shut him up with her in a country house for three 
solid weeks, and he gave in. They said Bertha 



124 Should Women Propose 

N 's mamma invited George B to Sunday 

night suppers, and told him to give his opinion 
frankly about the wine, and made him take old Mrs. 
Webster home, just as they do the poor thing who 
married the eldest girl. How much more noble, 
more honest had these young ladies come out in 
plain terms, told their love, mentioned what papa 
allowed them, and what grandpapa had done for 
Carry when she got married. Of course it would 
be a trifle embarrassing at first. All reforms bring 
with them a sense of strangeness. I should not my- 
self, were I a girl and in love, enjoy a letter contain- 
ing the information that, whereas he respected my 
character, he had not become attached to my indi- 
vidual self. And when it came to sending people on 
whom my somewhat errant fancy lighted, cigarettes, 
cigars, riding whips, and bric-a-brac, out of an in- 
come of six hundred dollars a year, I would admit 
that the new way has its shady places. 

And one thing I should certainly make an arrange- 
ment about. Martha, who is a perfect protection 
against the other sex — Martha shall accompany 
Janet when she calls on young men to whom she is 
paying attention. They tell me that no well-bred 
young gentleman ever receives without his mother 
or some settled relative to give him countenance. 
But we live in rather a provincial town, where it 
has not gotten about that it is bad form to visit in 
the evening, and I don't want Janet to go courting 



Should Women Propose 125 

where there are dogs or men that look hke robbers 
coming round dark corners. 

But, after all, what a fuss women make about pro- 
posing. One would think it had never been done 
before. But it has been done. There was La Belle 
Maguelonne; what more delicate, more charming, 
more unmistakable than the way in which she made 
known her sentiments? And Arethusa, delightful 
heroine of Fletcher's most graceful drama : 

" 'Tis true, Philaster, but the words I have to say are 

such 
And so ill beseem the mouth of woman that I wish 

them said, 
And yet am loth to say them. 
Turn, turn away thy face. Yet for my sake a little 

bend thy looks." 
Philaster: " I do." 

Arethusa: " Then know I must have them and thee." 
Philaster: ''And me?" 

Arethusa: " Thy love, without which, all the land, 
Discovered yet will serve me to no use 
But to be buried in." 

Neither Jane nor I pretend to understand the sub- 
tleties of Sudermann or even Maeterlinck, but when 
a lady makes use of words like these, we cannot ac- 
cuse ourselves of intellectual far-sightedness when 
we interpret them. 



126 Should Women Propose 

And that other occasion, the matter of the '' Duch- 
ess of Malfi," poor lady ! To be sure she " suffered 
the misery of us who are born great. We are forced 
to woo," but with what straighforwardness did 
she do it! 

" Awake, awake, man ! 

I do here put off all vain ceremony, 

And only do appear to you a young widow. 

That claims you for her husband, and like a widow, 

I use but half a blush in it." 

And can you, let there be no reserves between us, 
arrogate to yourself a more womanly, if determined, 
manner than that with which Victoria approached 
Prince Albert, or Wilhelmina the trifling Consort? 
Now for personal testimony. It happened but 
lately, and came within our ken. 

The lady struck one at first sight as firm, self- 
possessed, kind, but business-like. The man posi- 
tively exuded happiness, as the hills of the Psalmist 
dropped fatness. He was '' so glad of it, proud of 
it," as Miss Muloch would say, that he talked of 
nothing but marriage, and almost proposed to every 
woman he met, in his eagerness to have the whole 
world share his joy. In appearance, he suggested 
the old-fashioned child who has just had a twig- 
ging, having long been promised it, and now was 
rid of the threatened punishment. Gabriel Oaks, 



Should Women Propose 127 

in '' Far from the Madding Crowd," did not utter 
the word " wife " the day of his wedding oftener 
or with more unction, and he could not thirst with- 
out saying, '' Please give us some water." And 
yet, for some time before the marriage, that 
young man gave unmistakable evidence to the ex- 
cellent woman who is now his wife, that his affections 
had wandered, and he believed that, if his wishes 
were consulted, he would rather not. There was 
another girl, a particularly pretty girl, and most 
sympathetic. His now happy bride heard him, asked 
her rival's name, remembered that she could neither 
keep a house nor an account, and possessed a com- 
plexion that would fade, and a temper that would 
grow tart. Having gone over these things in her 
mind, she issued the following decree to her fiance : 
'' William Henry Martin, on the 25th day of 
next September, you will marry me." Before 
her determination, her courage, his foolish fancy 
died like the flutter of the summer wind. They were 
married at the appointed time, and his subsequent 
life has been an epithalamion. 



XIII 
Do /iDen propose 

STILL Janet hesitates, and a rare but beautiful 
blush dyes the coolest cheek in all the ranks of 
maidenhood : 

" Mamma, I am afraid I could not do it." 

Chut, child, do you think I would advise you to 
start a movement? I am simply putting away an 
obstacle, throwing down an idol. In your Aunt 
Jane's and my belief, the result of patient investiga- 
tion, were the whole truth known, we have not 
sufficient evidence to carry our case to court that men 
ever do propose, or if ever, so rarely that they are 
commemorated in novels, and quoted, as people 
quote George Eliot and Miss Austen, to prove that 
women have humour. 

Now people get married, but what is said on 
the occasion that opens the way to marriage is re- 
tained with such difficulty in the minds of those 
interested, that it is neither reliable nor entertaining. 

If, for instance, you asked your mamma, she 
would very properly say : " He threatened to kill 
himself," and that her iriving away was simply 

I2§ 



Do Men Propose 129 

yielding under the physical strain of his threatening 
and unnerving demands. Your papa, on the con- 
trary, might, for purposes of self-glorification, de- 
scribe the storming of the fortress, and his laying 
low regiments of valiant suitors ; but it is more than 
likely that he will say that he alluded casually to his 
dislike to bachelor's quarters, and the first thing he 
knew he was in your grandpapa's study telling him 
falsehoods about his income. In general, he has the 
air of an entrapped rabbit, or Rosamond in Miss 
Edgeworth's tale, who, under the impression that it 
was coloured glass, spent her money on a jar filled 
with purple dye. 

Now eyes and ears, as it is not necessary to tell an 
intelligent person, were made before books, and are 
more reliable sources of information; but in default 
of verbal testimony, I will quote the novelists to 
prove my point, and show that in the matter of pro- 
posing there is no innovation that may embarrass the 
most delicately minded female. To the question: 
Do men propose ? I can reply : It has certainly been 
done. 

'' Since I saw you first, Beatrice," says Esmond, 
" after our separation — r child you were then — ^you 
have had my heart, such as it was, and such as you 
were : I have loved no other woman." 

So far, so good, spoken like a man, or as we have 
been taught to believe like a man. 

"Will you be mistress of Carvel Hall^ Dorothy? 



130 Do Men Propose 

Halloween is the day that I ask it." Excellent for 
Mr. Richard Carvel. 

" I would like immensely to marry you, to make 
you my wife," says Mr. James' '' American" to his 
countess." 

" Evelyn," says Philip, in '' That Fortune," '' you 
must know that I love you." 

Positively, I begin to back water; the accumula- 
tion of testimony against my theory, while gratifying 
to female vanity, is piling up on the other side. 

But Daniel Deronda is at my elbow, and Grand- 
court is the first in the long list who puts the question 
in what one might call a tentative way. 

'' Do you command me to go ? Do you accept my 
homage?" 

The responsibility is thrown upon Gwendolyn, 
and George Eliot recognises the calculating spirit, 
which entrenches itself against a refusal. 

The risk, you see, is not taken by the suitor. 

Sir Charles Grandison did his courting with the 
strictest regard for the proprieties. 

Both the aunt and the grandmother of Miss 
Byron were present, and with commendable delicacy, 
these excellent women, scenting affairs of a private 
nature, moved to go. The pattern of decorum was 
however of another mind and bid them stay where 
they were. 

'' Neither of us would have you elsewhere," he 
said, and then from his decent lips issued this re- 



Do Men Propose 131 

markable sentence, whether uttered for purposes of 
self-protection or from extreme of refined feeHng I 
am at a loss to determine : '' Can you, Madam? " To 
which. Miss Byron, who, to be frank, was not coy, 
promptly and without circumlocution replied : " I 
can and I do." The language of lovers holds, it 
must be confessed, something of a mystery to the 
outsider, but to Miss Byron "Can you?" was as 
evident as the noonday sun. 

The closest investigation does not reward the 
reader with any reason to think that the cautious 
Staniford, in '' The Lady of the Aroostook," made 
any remark of a more hazardous nature to Miss 
Blood than the following : '' Do you think I 
wouldn't ? Fm longing for it." Upon which slender 
foundation (so it seems to Jane, who is a trifle 
haughty) Miss Blood announced her engagement. 

When Lothair made up his mind that it was best 
for the interests of his country that he should marry, 
he took the Lady Corisande into the garden, the 
Duchess' own garden, and I suppose that the act 
carried with it a significance not evident to the 
democratic mind. There they looked at the roses, 
and had he selected one whose exquisite face lifted 
itself to his, and given it to her, I think an American 
girl might have drawn an inference. I do not know 
how it would have been with a Briton, who, we think, 
is not so bright. But from the text, somewhat 
overladen with oriental imagery, I do not gather 



132 Do Men Propose 

that any such thing happened. But this I know: 
five minutes after this excursion, Lothair was lead- 
ing the peeress in her own right into her mother's 
presence, and saying, ''See, C oris and e has given me 
a rose." I am sure neither Jane nor I feel ourselves 
fit to criticise the aristocracy, but it does seem that 
if it is proper to communicate one's wishes by signs, 
Lothair ought to have done the rose-cutting. 

When Miss Grantly went to the ball, and danced 
a time or two too often with Lord Lufton to please 
his somewhat lukewarm rival, the Marquis of 
Hartletop, you remember that nobleman had no idea 
of making more than his accustomed safe remarks 
about the heat of the room and his own state of 
boredom. Goaded on, however, by jealousy, he did 
at last allude to the lesser sprig of nobility as '' that 
cad," which belittling expression he followed with 
" that puppy." Now neither of these remarks fails 
to convey the sense of the existence of passion, but 
I put it to you whether you yourself, wanting to be 
both dispassionate and fair, could honestly construe 
them to be words of love. And yet for the result 
they had on poor Hartletop' s fortunes, they might 
have been : Marry me next week by private license. 

" I think you had better take me to Mamma," 
whispered the in-possession-of-all-her-faculties Gri- 
selda; and what was spoken of in exclusive circles as 
an '' alliance" followed. 

Most of the readers 9f this book are too young to 



Do Men Propose 133 

remember the splendours of '' Granville de Vigne " 
fiction, which Jane and I drank out of a quart cup, 
at a draught, in the middle of the last century. But 
in its lurid pages there is a scene, not to be dislodged 
even by such absorbing literature as '' The Cardinal's 
Beretta." It is the night of the ball, in the sweet- 
scented conservatory, and the throbbing pulse of 
the band is keeping time with their heart-beats. 

Over her yielding form bent the dark-eyed Sa- 
bretache, who broke the perfumed silence with one 
word. It was " Violet," nothing more. And yet 
that young woman, with the assurance of one who 
had received, signed, and witnessed a proposition of 
marriage, murmured, " I am thine," and sank — 
never mind. But speaking with calmness, should 
the careful mother of daughters commend it as a 
precedent to be literally followed? 

A young man might, you know, utter the word 
" Emma" or even " Mary Jane," and that upon a 
summer evening, and have no intention of getting 
married. After all, there is something in a name, 
and a sweetness may exude from " Violet " which 
is not to be extracted from the mere mention of 
'' Ann " or even " Matilda." 

I said that a great deal of unnecessary fuss was 
being made over the sensible proposition that women 
propose. And later I let fall in confidence the 
remark that, were it permitted by the canons of 
society, after all no great change would be noticed. 



134 ^^ Men Propose 

So it is with the greatest satisfaction that I record 
the reply of Miss Edgeworth's CaroHne, when 
Falconer, who took some time about it, proposed; 
and this matchless female responded in the following 
unique manner : " I am at present happily occupied 
in several ways, endeavouring to improve myself; 
and I should be sorry to have my mind turned from 
these pursuits." But to be frank, Caroline is an 
exception. Ostrander in Miss Phelps' " Story of 
Avis," encouraged by the experience of his predeces- 
sors, in the matter of protecting their own sensitive 
feelings, ventures to address the object of his regard 
as a spoiled child addresses its nurse : " Let me 
hear you say it," he thundered with solemn author- 
ity. " You dared not." 

'' I dared not ? " replied Avis. 

" Let me know why not." 

" Becaue you did not ask me." A most excellent 
reason and so disarming that Miss Phelps permits 
her pride of sex to have a moment's sway, and under 
the force of it makes Ostrander stagger, pant, and 
finally fall down in excess of emotion, but spoils the 
moral by sending Avis on her knees beside him. 

Nor is Emanuel Bayard more glib when his time 
comes, though he was in a physical condition 
wretched enough to gratify the pride of the most 
exacting female. " His face," says the author of 
*' A Singular Life," " was ashen, and like stiffening 
clay he went white, as if he were smitten with death 



Do Men Propose 135 

rather than love." We gather that Helen had on 
her purple gown, while the yellow rose bloomed on 
her breast — a combination which had always proved 
too much for the sensibilities of Emanuel. And in 
the presence of a person in so convulsed a state, I 
suppose there was no harm in her saying what she 
did say. But if we are looking for facts, Emanuel did 
not speak, nor do I believe that before a jury that 
dear girl could have gotten damages ; for it was from 
her virgin lips that the utterance fell, " I do under- 
stand, I do, I do. Would it be any easier if I told 
you I have loved you all the time? " 

I am ashamed to be such a slave to superstition, 
and yet I can't help blushing when Jane, who is 
helping me collect these scientific data, gives me 
** Harry Richmond " open at " Otto, she cried, her 
face suffused with lovely blushes [thank Heaven for 
that], OttO', you love me! " 

Do, then, men propose? When women cry, they 
do. " 'Twas after a scene of ignoble quarrel on the 
part of Frank's wife and mother, that I found my 
mistress in tears, and I then besought her to confide 
herself to my care." This is Esmond's second woo- 
ing. . . As for Elinor Dashwood, I cannot under- 
stand how that model of sense and conduct could 
have so behaved when Edward Ferris finally put her 
out of her misery by announcing that his brother, 
not he, had married Lucy. " Eleanor could sit no 
longer," says Miss Austen, *' but almost ran out of 



136 Do Men Propose 

the room, and burst into tears of joy," which simple 
and natural expression of feeling had its effect upon 
the laggard Ferris, who, before the page is turned, 
really did frame the question, not, one may venture 
to surmise, with any definite or harassing fears of the 
result of his proposal. . . But they were not always 
tears of joy. As far as a disinterested non-partici- 
pant can judge, the heavy dragoon. Captain Crawley, 
had no idea of changing his bachelor state when he 
happened upon Miss Sharp alone on an eventful 
morning, and in his graceful way rallied her upon 
the admiration of his papa. Sir Pitt. " But she flung 
back her head scornfully. She looked him full in 
the face. ' I can endure poverty, but not shame; 

neglect, not insult ; and insult from you ' Her 

feelings gave way, she burst into tears. ' Hang it, 
Miss Sharp, Rebecca, by Jove, upon my soul, I 
wouldn't for a thousand pounds Stop, Re- 
becca ! " The deed was done. . . On one occasion 
and only one, as far as my recollection serves me, we 
have been reproached with a '' lack of woman's weep- 
ing^ a dearth of woman's tears," and that at the battle 
of Bingen ; but, as it occurred before the time of Miss 
Barton and her coadjutors, we were absent through 
no fault of our own, but because we had no business 
there, and I do not think we merit reproach, since we 
have done our best to make up for it by opening our 
flood gates at every opportunity. . . The fascinating 
Mariana, in " Phases of an Inferior Planet," not 



Do Men Propose 137 

only goaded Algarcife to a proposal by exciting his 
jealousy, she wept also. She received a letter from 
home, cutting off her remittances, and forth- 
with went to this somewhat gullible young gentle- 
man with the announcement, backed by streaming 
eyes: " I won't go back, I'll marry Mr. Paul," where- 
upon Algarcife (he had " spoken slowly and with re- 
straint at first,") fell into a pitiful snare, and said: 
" Mariana, you will not marry Mr. Paul, you will 
marry me." The truth laid bare by these researches 
seems to be that in all young and even middle-aged 
men there is a reluctance — that reluctance of which 
Matthew Arnold complains in the poet Gray — " to 
speak out," always excepting one class, of which I 
will discourse later. . . " Sieur Grandissime, you 
godd dat grade rispeg fo' me and I godd dat grade 
rispeg fo' you, but " — ^she bit her lip — she could not 
go on. " Aurore," said her lover, bending over 
her and taking both her hands, " I do love you with 
all my soul." " Mais, fo' w'y you di'n wan' to 
sesso? " Ah, she touched the spot, Aurore. " Mais, 
fo' w'y they di'n wan' to sesso? " Is it that they fear 
a repellent " no " ? 

I cannot soothe womanly pride with this belief, 
for Jane with her own ears heard a man from 
Gloucester county declare that he would marry no 
lady who would say " yes " the first time. 

But the exception to these persons, timorous, 
doubting, fastidious, are those who have known 
matrimony. 



138 Do Men Propose 

Widowers are a class in which I should say, 
speaking largely, there is no nonsense. *' So, Elea- 
nor," said the new dean in " Barchester Towers," 
" we are to be man and wife." A sensitive mind 
would infer little coquettishness on the part of Mrs. 
Bold, since her suitor was so sure of his ground, but 
that high-spirited'lady doubtless knew what was best 
for her and her darling little Johnny. . . " I can't 
git along without you; the house all goes wrong; 
come back and be my wife; you'll have it your own 
way and I'll make a settlement." And it is recorded 
that upon this occasion the inimitable Becky shed 
tears whose bitterness cannot be doubted, but which 
were not the tears of disappointed love. . . " And he 
was deadly pale, poor Lovel, and much excited, but 
he went up to her and said : " Dear Miss Prior, dear 
Elizabeth, remain in this house with such a title as 
none can question — be the mistress of it — ^be my 
wife." . . When Mr. Haydon, in Miss Jewett's '' A 
Second Spring," found that Marie Durant was going 
away, leaving him to salt his own fall pork, he made 
the following proposition : " I expect you know 
what I want to say. Miss Durant. I'll provide well 
for you and make a settlement. How do you feel 
about it? You feel it would be good judgment, 
don't you ? " And Marie Durant felt it would be 
good judgment, and the pork was salted in approved 
fashion. 

This is perhaps not the time to say it, but you 



Do Men Propose 139 

may notice that all these marriages, distinguished 
by the business-like clearness with which they were 
proposed, were suggested to the widower by his 
purely masculine trait of objecting to a change. 

Man is a creature of habit, and though I have 
never with my own eyes, as I told you, seen him 
darning stockings, no more have I beheld him domi- 
ciled with a rattlesnake, but I am ready, as Mrs. 
Gamp asseverated with some warmth, to go to the 
stake a Martha for it, that, did this unpleasant rep- 
tile remain long enough in his house for him to get 
used to it, he would certainly remark, did it propose 
to leave: ''Why go? I am sure we are very com- 
fortable as we are." 



XIV 
Sboul^ /iDen /IDatt^ 

BUT if you were a man? " said James, coming 
in at this particular moment. ** * Let the 
young women marry,' " I repHed, quoting Scripture. 
" But since you ask me, James, if I were you I 
wouldn't." 

The popularity of marriage is decreasing every 
year, and the number of bachelors so far surpasses 
that of married men that to win one from the order 
is to achieve a triumph; and they have a supposi- 
titious value, like fish hooks in Labrador and moho 
feathers in the Sandwich Islands. 

Were unmarried men plentiful as they were in our 
time, of course it would be different. Women were 
so rare in those prehistoric ages that all the world 
was like a Western mining town, and a lover who 
succeeded after long years of servitude in gaining 
his suit was distinguished among his fellows, and 
sent to Congress or adopted into a rich firm, being 
credited with boundless tact and acumen. 

But since their mysterious disappearance, men 
have become disproportionately important. We 

140 



Should Men Marry 141 

mammas are said to be censorious when we go up to 
the morning room, and drink tea, and the " hens are 
all on." But all censoriousness ceases when we 
begin to talk about the bachelors. " Not handsome, 
perhaps, but such a fine open countenance," or, lest 
mildness suggest faint praise, " Frightfully ugly 
and deadly fascinating." Even poverty, in these 
hard times, is not disgraceful in the right sex. 
** Was not Mr. Rockefeller poor?" asks the chast- 
ened parent of six dear girls, seeing sermons in 
stones and good in everything. 

Jane and I know a bachelor who ogles, and being 
of an excitable nature, when moved to laughter (and 
he is easily amused) claps his wings on his sides 
and crows. But on his narrow breast he wears the 
badge " eccentric," and is treated with respect and a 
pretty air of deference, while pretty girls murmur in 
his ear: " I wish I wasn't commonplace! " 

Of course what is said here is intended to go no 
further, but in my opinion James' platitudes are re- 
ceived with an enthusiasm to which they are not 
entitled, and he owes the respect with which they 
are greeted to his bachelor condition, not to their 
intrinsic merit. Now it seems to me if I were in 
Utopia I would stay there. If my words were the 
apples of gold in pictures of silver, alluded to in 
Solomon's Song, if my presence were languished 
for, and my tastes consulted, I should not, as did 
James the other night, show a dangerous symptom 



142 Should Men Marry 

by asking the price of coal, and whether one could 
have one's shirt fronts done decently at home. In 
fact, in James' place, for all the interest these ques- 
tions had for me, they might have been answered in 
an extinct Semitic tongue. For if ever in a man's 
life a fictitious value is put upon him, it is when he 
is single and disengaged, but if he really desires to 
know his actual worth, he can satisfy his curiosity 
by noting the oblivion of his fellow creatures to his 
very existence, does he simply announce his betro- 
thal. It is a matter to muse on, what becomes of all 
the charming young men who adorned society a few 
seasons ago. 

They were clever, kind, '' just religious enough to 
suit my Isabella," but utterly has the wave passed 
over them. '' Where," demands M. Verlaine " are 
last year's snows?" What really has become of 
them, to quote the experienced Stevenson's cheerful 
response, is : " They have passed the altar, and 
entered the long run home, dusty and straight to 
the grave." 

For myself I cannot picture a more sickening 
sense of change than that which must come to the 
bachelor of the present day when he wakes to the 
fact that, socially speaking, he has forfeited his right 
to live. Until his head was put into the noose, and 
*' it is a noose, you know," says Mr. Brook in 
'* Middlemarch," he was accepted on his bachelor- 
hood and no questions asked. Nice girls were 



Should Men Marry 143 

willing to spend long afternoons entertaining him, 
and Jane and I knew a poor widow of aristocratic 
birth but decayed circumstances, by whose little 
parlour fire, at least ten impecunious men nightly sat 
between the hours of eight and eleven, not one of 
whom could have married her only daughter. This 
was a girl who slept afternoons in order to be fresh 
for persons who, in a remote and only partially 
civilised part of our country, are described by the 
obsolete term of " beaux." Jane proposed that our 
widow take up a little contribution among them once 
a week to keep up the fire, but this was frowned on 
as indelicate. 

Stiff cuffs and a certain literalness, when pos- 
sessed by young men, are set down to '' strength " 
and '' compelling power." That grim silence, that 
forbidding look of self-confidence you have probably 
resented in the youth, when you have seen him Sun- 
day mornings walking home from church with a 
charming girl, while she pours out a flood of anec- 
dote, wit, and appeal; none of these repellent 
characteristics seem to alienate her from him. " A 
man's a man," says the poet, " for a' that." But as 
the serpent bereft of his fangs, the lion of his teeth, 
so is the usual bachelor converted into a married 
man. It's a lesson that, the spectacle of the forlorn 
object sitting through a long dinner by a young 
woman who addresses herself to the man on her left, 
and who, when the Benedict would cut in, as was 



144 Should Men Marry 

his former playful habit, regards him with a distant 
glance, and then going on with : ^' You were saying, 
Mr. Brown — — ?" gives him an opportunity to 
know exactly how she does her back hair. A year 
ago, he had only to open his lips, and that small, fair 
head bent to him as the rose to the summer wind. 
Now, he must shout his best story to the deaf lady 
across the table or devote himself to eating. Married 
men are accused of an inordinate fondness for food, 
but I think they are driven to it by neglect and 
dulness. 

And one has only to read current literature to find 
how unpopular married men really are. Almost all 
the ladies who ask our sympathy in the works of 
Julien Gordon and other portrayers of high life 
are married to brutes. Most of the amiable and 
cultivated heroines of Mrs. Wharton's teaching 
volumes have quitted the marital mansion because 
" life under the circumstances was impossible," the 
circumstances generally being well-meaning men 
with, however, little artistic sense. Even a writer 
like M. Paul Bourget, who to our mind, Jane's 
and mine, is not trammelled by commonplace 
conventionalities, even M. Bourget has no word of 
sympathy for him. The entrancing '' Termonde," 
in " Andre Cornelis," had even committed a murder. 
Miss Broughton and Ouida alone are his apologists, 
as instanced in Granville de Vigne, you recollect, 
and Sabretache and the hero of '' Not Wisely but too 



Should Men Marry 145 

well." Stay, I have forgotten Mr. Rochester, but, 
frankly, I do not think either this victim of passion 
or the man in Miss Broughton's romance are persons 
one would " simply love to Hve with." 

And while I am about it, I may as well tell the 
truth. Married men have a good deal to put up 
with. You have your little peculiarities. Yes, ladies, 
you know you have. You dislike crowds, you can't 
stand, you have that " peculiar feeling at the back of 
your neck" ; you must have " air" ; a necessity I 
have mentioned before, but it can't be named with 
too much empressement. And then about your 
reasoning faculty. I suppose you have heard about 
Women's Congresses, which are reported exactly as 
if they were the doings of clever trained animals, and 
have found out that the branch devoted to the legal 
profession was the greatest joke of all, and that these 
ladies were graded as inferior exhibits at a county 
fair, and marked fourth class. The fact is, I would 
agree with the reporters, but for certain compell- 
ing esprit de corps, and say that in my opinion we 
do lack what psychologists call " the elaborative 
faculty"; and though a supernaturally bright 
woman, an old acquaintance, has begun to practise 
law in our town, retaining enough of her archaic 
traits to defame our characters, because we do not 
patronise her, Jane and I have our legal business 
conducted by old Mr. de Russy, who wears a thin 
black alpaca coat, and never opens his lips, but 



146 Should Men Marry 

whose influence over us is such that, when he shoves 
an unread document toward us, we sign. 

But for this cspiHt de corps I mentioned, I 
would tell you of a lady who gave as a reason 
for not marrying a man to whom she had 
been engaged for a year, that she didn't like 
the way he built his back porch. It is not un- 
usual with us to refuse to buy a bolt of cotton 
cloth from a merchant whose mouth suggests 
inward traits repellent to our natures; and I have 
heard a lady refuse to shake hands with one of her 
husband's best friends, because she '' had a creepy 
feeling " when he was around. I know that persons 
who wish to flatter us ascribe these peculiarities 
to a faculty they call '' feminine instinct " (a quality 
we share with lower forms of animals), but these 
evidences do militate against belief in our dispas- 
sionateness. 

"My dear," said Mr. Locker-Thompson, the 
poet, to his wife : '' My dear, don't you think you 
are sometimes of rather too rigid a disposition? 
You know at the railway stations you often point 
out to me, as predestined to all eternity to a shameful 
end, a man who has incurred your ill opinion by 
wearing trousers of a rather broad stripe, and has 
an unusually large cigar in his mouth." 

And then a man has to accommodate himself to 
the sort of food his wife fancies to give him. Most 



Should Men Marry 147 

women have a mania, about once a week, for dis- 
missing the servants and putting on '' the blue cloth," 
and having what they call '' high tea." This repast 
is of an uninviting nature, sandwiches, jellies, and 
what the cook in '' A Londoner's Log Book " calls 
'* cold swets " — soapy-looking mixtures sent by 
Satan to buffet us, and known as '' whipped creams." 
She never used to give him that sort of bubbly stuff 
in the old days. Ah, so far, so long, long ago! 
when terrapin stew was none too good. 

And another thing, but I suppose a generous 
nature would not mind. No matter how long he has 
stood first on one foot, then on the other, debating 
" Shall I, or shall I not ? " One fine morning he will 
overhear his Mabel's mamma talking him over with 
a friend. 

*' I suppose you know we were a little disap- 
pointed. Mabel is a gifted girl, and we rather ex- 
pected Well, he simply would not take ' No * 

for an answer, and behaved so about that dear boy 
Reggie Blake's attentions that he made us all quite 
nervous, and Mabel was really unstrung. How- 
ever, he is a well-principled young man, and, I fre- 
quently remind myself, looks and talent are not 
everything." 

Of course it depends a good deal upon what sort 
of compliments a person is accustomed to, and what 
are his ambitions, as to how he takes these enco- 



148 Should Men Marry 

miums; but this brick, to quote an authority, will 
enable one to judge pretty well of what the matri- 
monial mansion is built. 

Do I, then, counsel bachelors to so remain? Of 
my own judgment, yes; with authority, no. But this 
nugget of wisdom I will drop: When a man 
marries, he may feel like the person who bought the 
Punch and Judy show ; and then again, he mayn't. 



XV 
%MnQ VB. %ovc 

WE scarcely realise till we have tried love, how 
excellent a thing liking is. We can love, and 
be disgusted with the object of our passion — angry, 
jealous. 

In literature, especially French literature, it is the 
highest proof of devotion to suspend one's wife over 
the banister by her back hair in fits of uncontrollable 
feeling; but neither you nor I ever knew a gentle- 
man to put his spouse in this undignified position, or 
even to stab her, for simple liking. We will go 
further, we will say we never knew him to turn her 
out of doors because he entertained an affectionate 
friendship for her. 

These acts, O Love, are committed in thy name ! 

But even practical people place liking on a low 
scale, while they elevate passion. I once knew a 
woman, whose testimony, it is true, was somewhat 
invalidated by her weakness of mind in keeping a 
boarding house to support an idle husband, say with 
wifely pride: ''John doesn't always like me, but I 

149 



150 Liking vs. Love 

know he loves me all the time." If John had 
" liked " her all the time, she would not have had to 
go to market before breakfast, and he, not she, would 
have sat up with the sick baby, and played back- 
gammon every evening with the Second Story Front, 
to give him '' that home feeling." For it is the 
people who love us, who impose upon us, who blow 
hot and blow cold, are suspicious and exacting. A 
real liking, on the other hand, expresses itself in con- 
sideration and respect. 

And above all, we can love one who bores us. 
Have I not seen you yawn, Belinda, and think the 
evening long, unrestrained as is your passion for 
George? But I defy you to show me a person who 
inspires genuine liking and causes his or her friend 
mental fatigue. A certain congeniality of thought, 
or opinion, or taste, precludes ennui in the other's 
presence. But let us haste to the evidences of love. 

Until she was the object of a " wild devotion, 
never to be recalled," such as Captain Cuttle professed 
to cherish for the one, who so blithe and gay as our 
own Maria? Wordsworth's " Dolphin on the sum-^ 
mer sea," was as cumbrous as a crocodile compared 
to her. Now she spends her time in tears. These 
unmistakable evidences of emotion are the result 
of notes, so violent in temper, so furious in expres- 
sion, that they scorch the postman's hand, and have 
wrung from the parlour maid, a thin-skinned crea- 
ture, as I have reason to know, a suppressed scream, 



Liking vs. Love 151 

produced by fire applied to delicate flesh, when she 
would take them to the presence of the beloved. And 
are they not indeed distilled vitriol, recrimination, 
accusations, threats? 

Now, I should like to know, would any influence 
but devoted, reciprocal love call forth such denunci- 
'ations? And on her side, what induces Maria, 
pretty, gentle, and refined, to treat Robert as she 
does — to look at him with provoking coldness, 
to decline his invitations, to ridicule his poor attempts 
at pleasing her? Save affection, what induces 
Robert to take offence if she treats him with famili- 
arity, suspecting a dark and sisterly feeling to be at 
the bottom of her infrequent efforts to behave to 
him as she does to the rest of the world? 

When a friend for whom Robert entertains even 
a chilly regard has a headache, he is sympathetic and 
considerate. But the whisper of an indisposition on 
poor Maria's part is as kerosene oil to a lightwood 
fire. *' It is a ruse," he roars, '' a wretched ruse to 
deceive me, to get rid of me, to see that fellow. I 
will go away, and I will never come back again." 
And Maria, proud and happy to have evoked such 
evidence of unbridled passion, and made the thing 
she loves wretched, Maria pursues her smiling way 
until, well, until he gets a square off. Then, shall I 
tell it? then she adopts the policy of Miss Isabella 
Thorpe in '' Northanger Abbey," who, you recollect, 
** though amazing glad to get rid of them," had no 



152 Liking vs. Love 

sooner been assured by Catherine that the two 
strangers in the Pump Room had gone, than she 
proposed to go to Edgar's Buildings to look at her 
new hat, though Catherine innocently suggested 
only, " If we go now, we may overtake them." 

And this gentle and pleasing passion having been 
excited, Robert goes about, like Mr. Philip Firmin, 
whom he ignorantly imitates, for he has " got quite 
beyond Thackeray," " upsetting the trays and mak- 
ing himself arrogant and disagreeable, swaggering 
about drawing-rooms," where, until he becomes the 
victim of the softening influences of love, he behaved 
himself like a gentleman. 

It is too long to quote here, but if you will get out 
your second volume of " Philip " you will have an 
entirely accurate picture of the caprices and the 
insufferable manners of a person in love. 

Certainly I do not want to be sensational, but 
when I think of the things people do to those they 
love, I wonder that at the first symptom that one has 
excited affection, she does not fly from it as from a 
pestilence. It is rather commonplace to cite Othello, 
but there he is, and there is Mr. Rochester. The 
first demonstrated his overpowering attachment by 
smothering, the second by breaking the bones of the 
beloved. In fact I believe Mr. Rochester improved 
on the Moor, and demonstrated his passion for the 
" too wildly dear " Miss Eyre, by threatening, after 
he had broken her bones, to throw her spare form 



Liking vs. Love 153 

and fascinating green eyes out of a third-story 
window. This act he did not actually perform, but 
Jane was credulous, and he kept her up to her work 
by reminding her of his intention. . . Manisty, in 
" Eleanor," showed his hand to that astute and sus- 
picious lady by his insulting rudeness to her rival 
Lucy. I suppose nothing but love could have made 
a gentleman purposely uncivil to his guest, a young- 
girl in a foreign land. But it was for him to invent 
a special form of showing passion, a satanish device 
all his own. He criticised her clothes. . . But per- 
haps the hero of " An Englishwoman's Love Let- 
ters " 's way was as '' convincing," as we say. He 
told her to be gone, he sent back her moist and blot- 
ted wails unopened, and at last, when he was sent for 
to receive her dying blessing, he firmly, though po- 
litely, pleaded another engagement. This last epi- 
sode, you recollect, dispelled all doubt, all fear. 
" Now," uttered the departing spirit, with its last, 
faint breath, '' now I know he loves me." . . 
And one more example of a perfectly natural and 
familiar phase of the disease. It is the aesthetic 
Alfred in the Polish novel " Maria " we are all read- 
ing. When the heroine humbles herself before him 
to the very dust, he rejects her with the following 
remark : " It is love's way to be cold, to be repellent. 
There is no true passion unmixed with anger." 
What sort of anger? ''Blind anger." 

In presence of final proofs of love like these, I am 



1 54 Liking vs. Love 

almost ashamed to mention a comparatively trivial 
incident, but, as Sainte-Beuve said to Arnold, when 
he could not understand Lamartine's being con- 
sidered in France an important person, " He was 
important to me." So this anecdote. And yet one 

hesitates because it is personal Well then, I 

know a lady — at least, I am told by a Greek philoso- 
pher that it is my chief business to know her — who 
in her youth suffered on one occasion from a bruised 
hand. It hurt dreadfully, and was injured by a man 
who, when he did it, cried out in a loud voice: " If 
it is not to be mine, it shall be useless." 

Now we all have our moments of self-abasement, 
when we doubt whether anybody really cares 
whether we are alive or dead, but a searching exam- 
ination of the conduct of our friends toward us will 
soon decide that matter. Has one among them been 
exacting, suspicious, and a retailer of unpleasant 
truths? Then, oh, doubting soul! take heart. ''I 
am your friend," said the Hen to the Ugly Duck- 
ling, '' and therefore I tell you these disagreeable 
things." 

Is one among thy male acquaintances, oh, shrink- 
ing maid ! who has contemptuously refused to dance 
with thee at the cotillion, or referred to thee as a 
*' good girl, but not his style " — decide at once 
whether thou art ready to exchange thine own luxu- 
rious surroundings in the paternal home for his 
bachelor den. He is on the eve of a proposal. For 



Liking vs. Love 155 

so love reveals itself, in depreciatory speeches, in 
slights, in neglect. 

And a word about this passion in its general 
aspects. It is of so dark and resentful a character, as 
we said, that whole households are plunged in gloom 
when one member of it is love's victim. How we 
berate the postman if he brings it not, the longed- 
for letter! How countless the trays that go up- 
stairs because " Poor Helen can't face people, she is 
so unhappy ! " How frequent and crucial the inter- 
views after midnight with Harry, who threatens to 
quit the country on account of that wretched girl, or, 
as he puts it in poetic if not strictly original lan- 
guage, '' give up the struggle ! " I have given you in- 
cidents sufficient to show the effect of love between 
young ladies and young gentlemen; but how about 
its malign influence when shown to excess be- 
tween ladies and ladies? Madam, with the super- 
sensitive epidermis, whom do you persecute? Whom 
do you quarrel with and then make up? With whom 
are you exacting and then to whom do you take 
the liberty of speaking your mind? . . It was 
the week before New Year's, and Jane came to 
Janet's mamma. '* I have decided," she said, '' what 
I want you to give me for my New Year pres^ 
ent. You are to treat me exactly as you treat Mrs. 
Jinks." " Mrs. Jinks," echoed the lady addressed, 
" Mrs. Jinks ! " Why, I have never treated Mrs. 
Jinks any way. I have lived beside her for twenty 



156 Liking vs. Love 

years, and few people occupy less space in my 
thoughts, and yet it is as I conduct myself to this 
lady that my sister and life-long intimate asks me 
to act toward her! Really, when I considered the 
modest demand of Jane, " Pity," as " Night 
Thoughts " has it, '' swelled the tide of love." 
Never was request more modest, more humble. In 
the face of it, I could think of nothing more appro- 
priate to say than '' Why, Jane? " 

'' Yes, I mean what I say. Mrs. Jinks is a woman 
to whom you are indifferent, but whom you respect, 
though you do not feel at home with her. You do 
not pretend to be wrapped up in her society, nor do 
you flatter her, but you say nothing that is not polite 
and kind. There are times when I deplore your 
inability to leave me, especially when you say that 
it was my headache which kept you from the Board 
meeting, nor do I wish your flattery when you do 
not wish me to keep you waiting, and therefore say 
to me, ' Do hurry, Jane, you need not stop to prink, 
you look well in anything,' especially when * any- 
thing ' means my old brown serge. Nor am I jealous 
of those intellectual intimacies you hold with 
* women who read and think.' I want you to be 
to me as you are to Mrs. Jinks ; because, were you 
so, you would be so much more comfortable to live 
with. For instance, because, through no fault of 
my own, we are children of the same parents, you 
scold me when I mislay a parcel or express an 



Liking vs. Love 157 

opinion to which you do not subscribe. If I repeat 
in your presence a story that you have heard, well, 
we will say, for we are not children, a hundred times, 
you are impelled by the tie of blood to scream out, 
' Oh, Jane ! ' Now, Mrs. Jinks also repeats herself, 
but who gives her more respectful attention than 
you? Why, I have myself heard you say, 'How 
very, very curious,' and in the right place, too, when 
she told — very well, we won't revive it. And 
John has a story, too, and it is not new, as he is 
not new, but whenever opportunity offers, you trot 
it out. You tell me this is marital devotion, but 
sisterly affection does not keep you from wounding 
my vanity. You have absorbed enough of the new 
cult of exaggerated respect for your children to beg 
James' pardon if your attention happens to stray 
by the faintest shade from his photographic and 
minute account of his talk with his tailor; and 
I confess that to see you in this fashionable but 
unnatural attitude is worth while, as a proof of what 
the style can do. Still I should like to ask a question. 
Why have no clubs been established for the protec- 
tion of brothers and sisters against each other, or 
old and family friends against each other? No 
homilies from Mr. Henderson entreating the near 
relation to make his first cousins happy, no lectures 
from Mrs. Stetson-Gilman bidding us pause when 
we are about to say, ' Don't tell it,' to an elderly 
sister, or urging us not to look with ' solemn, grieved 



158 Liking vs. Love 

eyes, when an aunt of fifty mentions to a niece of 
forty that she ' doesn't wish to discuss it further ' ? 
Why, I repeat, has not this' reform been pushed? 
In default of it," continued Jane, " give me my New 
Year's present. Be as pohte to me as you are to the 
accidental person next door, before whom you re- 
strain yourself from expression of uncomplimentary 
opinion, and to whom you are civil and fair." 

Jane is a person of little education, but excellent 
natural parts. It seems to me that her suggestions 
have a value in every household. And more, if, as 
Mr. Bernard Shaw astutely observes, we only 
treated our friends and relations as we treat our 
enemies, what a comfortable world this would be. 
If we are married, our opportunities being greater 
to display the agreeable results of unalterable affec- 
tion, we use our little inquisitorial instruments with 
unbridled license. In proportion as we love, we tax 
each other, worry each other, are jealous of each 
other. We can't live a minute apart, and yet do 
not exchange a polite sentiment, and are to each 
other slave and master or mistress, as the case 
may be. 

And how do we show our love for our children? 
I know an attached parent who let all her other chil- 
dren get married, but broke off the engagement of 
her special pet, because the special pet was too dear 
to part with. 

And (I really feel that I must apologise for the 



Liking vs. Love 159 

number of my acquaintances, for I would really love 
to be thought '' eclectic ") I know another lady, this 
time a young mother, who does not hesitate to wake 
her little boy when she comes in from a ball, to kiss 
him good-night. 

'' Johnny, you love me best in the world, don't 
you? Quite the very best?" And when poor 
drowsy Johnny nods, '' Quite the best," how charm- 
ing to hear her ejaculate, '' There is nothing in the 
world as unselfish as a mother's love. I had to come 
all the way up here to see him." But I put it to 
you in all frankness — did ever man or woman wake 
a sleeping enemy to bid him good-night ? No, these 
same people, mothers, husbands and wives, sisters 
and brothers, conduct themselves toward those whom 
they dislike with a self-respectful, even lofty de- 
meanour. They are scrupulous not to speak ill of 
them, are almost deferential, are they thrown to- 
gether. 

The consciousness that one has done us an injury 
puts a seal on lips that, under other circumstances, 
are far from disciplined. We are even capable of 
doing our enemy a kindness. We seldom lack dig- 
nity in his presence. The truth is, we treat those 
we hate so much better than we treat those we love 
that, but for the name of it, it were better to be hated 
than loved. 

" The child has not been a belle," remarks Jane, 
using the word for whose meaning you must look in 



i6o Liking vs. Love 

Doctor Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, "but for my 
part, I am glad, except in the heart of the exigeant 
Martha, she has excited no overpowering affection. 
Better no flowers, no notes, no stolen interviews, 
than tears and breakfasts in bed." 



XVI 
Xove anb Jforty 

THE period when age is a reproach shifts with 
our advancement. Bulwer made his heroes his 
own age until he reached sixty. Then the timely critic 
warned him that he had come to the hour when the 
fires of passion run low, and that he must observe it. 

But Bulwer was the exception. All the feats of 
courage, of understanding, or 'discretion even, were 
performed by persons, if we are to trust the novels, 
who, had one shaken them hard, would have shed 
their milk teeth. The silly young ladies in ** Guy 
Mannering " were fifteen or sixteen, Rowena was 
eighteen, Beatrice Esmond not quite so old, Meh 
Lady was not, I think, turned twenty, Di Vernon 
had not come of age, nor Rosalind, and Juliet had 
not reached her sixteenth year, when the crises 
came. 

As to candidates to matrimony, twenty-five years 
was the limit. From twenty to that decisive date 
was our harvest. If the eleventh hour struck and no 
man had called us, we retired into the ranks of 

l6i 



1 62 Love and Forty 

spinsterhood, or, if we waited, we waited for the 
second crop. 

With scientific methods for prolonging life, we 
have now extended the period of legitimate enjoy- 
ment, with the result that all women have a right to 
exist with a full appetite for the pleasure of living 
till forty. 

But forty is the six-railed fence where we pause, 
shrinking from the leap. There are pleasures ap- 
propriate to fifty and sixty. " Live and let live " 
is our motto. Decollete gowns, butterfly bonnets, 
marriage, literary societies, all come under the head 
of blessings of middle age. The woman who has 
the courage to announce '' I am fifty, and I like a 
sentimental novel and a Louise hat " has earned the 
fulfilment of her wishes. It would be like deny- 
ing the condemned murderer broiled chicken the 
night before his execution, to deny her these or any 
of the above-named diversions. But there is some- 
thing in the sound of forty, something in the posi- 
tion between youth and age, which is so humiliating, 
so irritating to her who has reached it, to her who 
is yet in sight of it, that Jane and I have never heard 
a truthful word about it from one who had a per- 
sonal interest in it; while the only woman who will 
acknowledge it is she who has long passed it, and, 
if she speaks at all, must own to something, worse. 

Nor can we account for this prejudice any more 
than we can account for the inherent dislike to 



Love and Forty 163 

snakes. We only know that when one woman 
wishes to send an arrow through the reputation of 
another woman, there is no better, surer way than 
"She is forty if she is a day"; and if one more 
kindly, but yet a woman, would lay a wreath upon 
the memory of the absent, she remarks of the friend 
who is still young, '' How old ? Oh, thirty-five or 
forty," though she knows it is but thirty-six. 

Nor is it easy to be honest with one's self upon 
this subject. At thirty-nine the clock ceases to go. 
I knew an ungenerous husband to promise his wife 
a pearl necklace the day she was forty, nor need I 
add it was not until her great-grandchild stared her 
in the face that she permitted herself to demand the 
withheld treasure. Unlike the man who, when his 
doubting friends counted up the time he had pro- 
fessed to spend in the different capitals of Europe, 
found, by his own reckoning, that he must be ninety- 
nine years old, our reckoning is a gradual dimin- 
uendo, and I am acquainted with a respectable lady 
who so long stood upon thirty-nine that a fair com- 
putation makes her a bride at three, a mother at 
four, and a grandmother at sixteen. To be sure, 
we are not unwarned. An observant person has it 
forced upon her by seeing that the majority of people 
she meets on the street are younger than she, and 
when she tries on a bonnet she has the experience 
of hearing the milliner tell her attendant to " bring 
something soft, with tulle strings, perhaps." Girls 



164 Love and Forty 

give her *' Mamma's love/' and do not wait for her 
to call. And — it is a convenience, but it has its 
sting — she can go where she wills, alone and un- 
touched by the breath of slander. 

Her tastes, too, take on a positive quality; she 
begins to have a contempt for people who do not care 
what they eat, and supper has its place in the attrac- 
tions of an entertainment. 

Now, for my own part, I have always considered 
one of the most dangerous and revealing signs of the 
arrival of forty a sudden desire to cultivate the 
mind, a passion for clubs and literary societies, and 
a desire to be thought " cultured." I have a friend 
who mocked at this mellow mental state all her 
young and radiant life, and who used to say: 
" There's lots of time when one can do nothing else. 
I shall not waste good daylight with a stupid book." 
These audacious but sincere utterances were entitled 
to a certain respect, because she was a clever 
creature, and really knew by observation most of the 
things other people have written about. But the 
other day she came to us and demanded admission to 
the Dante Club, and though she wore a red golf- 
jacket and a short grey skirt and a grey Alpine hat 
with a feather in it whose dangerous propensity 
for putting out people's eyes guaranteed her the side- 
walk, Jane and I looked at each other with a com- 
prehending glance. And when another took up 
music, and began to discourse about her great talent 



Love and Forty 165 

in that direction, and how she had been wasteful of it, 
but now that she had more leisure to resume her ac- 
complishment she thought she would have an hour 
or two a week for Grunwall; though she did not 
know it, she had said as plain as words could say : 
*' I've crossed the Alpheus, the sacred river that runs 
' through caverns measureless to man down to a sun- 
less sea.' " 

Now if there were the least use in the world in 
denying it, if there were any possible way of ward- 
ing it off, I for one would never acknowledge to 
forty. A feeling that is universal must be respected, 
and the repugnance to this particular birthday would 
probably be found in the mind of the Zufii lady, as 
in that of the flower of American aristocracy. But 
no matter how one has preserved the outward in- 
signia of youth and inward testimony that it still 
lingers, no matter how she may enjoy the society of 
vealy youths and lurid literature, even though she 
may give up her Shakespeare class because it con- 
flicts with the manicure (which was the case with 
our cousin Camilla), there are always people around 
who have attended her christening, or helped her 
cut her first tooth, to bear witness of her approach 
to the fatal hour. 

I suppose there are blacker deeds, but it seems to 
me that there is none quite so indicative of a selfish 
disregard of the feelings of others as that blatant 
way some women have of telling their ages, To my 



1 66 Love and Forty 

mind it is a disease like that which makes morbid, 
half-insane persons for the hope of notoriety ascribe 
to themselves crimes they have never committed. 
Or it is a Samson-like act of vengeance. She pulls 
dov^n the pillars and destroys herself; but behold the 
wreck of homes and lives she brings with her ! 

I myself know a woman, ambitious, but socially 
ineffectual, whose successful rival is her younger- 
looking, handsome, popular sister, than whom she 
is fourteen months older. Last winter, at a brilliant 
function where a charmed group, like clustering 
bees, was hanging about her delightful relation, I 
heard a distinct utterance which stilled that rela- 
tion's girlish glee : " Yes, I was forty-two last 
March. Of course Agnes is younger, a little over a 
year." 

Now you can think what you like, but, for my 
part, I believe that a woman who will criminate 
others by telling her own age, is incited to do so by 
motives of envy or revenge. We are as old as we 
look, — no, a good deal younger, — and it is useless 
to tell me that one who is bold about this intimate 
and personal matter is " to be admired for her can- 
dour," — a quality women, chary of praise of their 
sex, do not withhold from her, nor need you assure 
me, as all men do, that she has that engaging quality 
they call " horse sense." All the women I know 
who have ^' horse sense " are matrons of public asy- 
lums or principals of public schools. 



Love and Forty 167 

And while neither Jane nor I would wish to lower 
your ideal of human nature, I might as well, while 
I am about it, mention an instance of youthful de- 
pravity which will upset all those complimentary the- 
ories entertained by Mr. Henderson and Mrs. Stet- 
son-Gilman concerning the repellent doctrine of 
original sin. For my part I was thankful enough, 
after I heard it, to jump into it and cover up my 
head and try to hide. 

With a prescience beyond his years, and a cruelty 
not to be looked for in the heart of childhood, a boy 
of my acquaintance, now a grown man, used to at- 
tend the birthday parties of all his little friends; 
and on each such happy occasion, as they in their 
ignorance then regarded it, he took out a little book, 
in which he induced all present tO' write their names 
and ages. 

You may perhaps recollect, in the " Rollo " 
books, a hateful boy named Jonas, whO' always 
had his pocket full of string, which saved the lives 
of Rollo and his sister when they were about to 
meet deserved deaths, which would have greatly 
added to the interest of these *' I told you so " tales. 
Now a child, even a girl child, simple thing, is proud 
of its tiny weight of years, and not perceiving that 
this book was, in a way of speaking, ^ a pocket full 
of string," fell into the trap with cheerful alacrity. 
One poor creature, thinking that ten years looked 
well in writing, set herself down as eleven, as one 



1 68 Love and Forty 

better, and also because she was emulous of appear- 
ing a trifle superior to her friend. 

What, then, was the confusion of a company of 
his acquaintances when, recently, after long years, 
at a general festivity, where all were gathered, he 
presented his record, signed and sealed by the per- 
sons who were supposed to know best how old they 
were. Since this incident I have been expecting the 
tale-bearer to disappear over the falls of Niagara, 
like the man who told the Masons* secret; but, as 
yet, only the women who were betrayed have dis- 
appeared. 

And yet there is such a thing as Love and Forty, 
at which not the most carping of a cynical audience 
— such as I fear I address^ — would smile. Once I 
would have seen it myself with just such unbeliev- 
ing eyes. She was a tall, somewhat stately lady, 
a little inclined to what one might describe as 
austerity of line. There was the richness of ma- 
turity in her dress, but a sober richness, and her 
hair was a snow-white, folded like a gull's wing 
above a perfect brow. But for the rich, soft 
bloom, I would have called a certain number 
under my breath. But that and a sense of great 
strength and endurance made me hesitate. Where 
had I seen her? Ah, I had it! That manner of 
distant though perfect courtesy, the habitual melan- 
choly of those dark eyes, except when they met the 
trustful glance of childhood, that certain gracious 



Love and Forty 169 

sadness, as though in the affairs of the world she had 
only a dignified acquiescence — all this was told 
when I murmured the name of her who was hon- 
oured by the love of Thomas Newcome. But it is 
not necessary for a woman to have suffered great 
sorrow like Madame de Florae to evoke at forty 
love and admiration from the opposite sex. In the 
presence of the disciplined temper, the power to 
discriminate between sin and folly, a certain modera- 
tion in view (that lesson that Saint Teresa taught 
— not to make a matter of little things), all these 
possessions which ought to belong to every woman, 
simply from having lived in the world so long, the 
attractions of the most engaging of young girls 
pale. Nobody denies to youth its own illusive 
charm. But put the young girl on paper and she 
is crude or she is shadowy. " She is very beauti- 
ful," I heard an artist say, " for so young a woman." 
He had been sitting down with his pigments before 
him, but he was a character painter, not one of the 
modern French school, and he revealed the soul 
beneath, as did the master who painted Henry 
James' " The Liar." And there was no character 
to paint in this good, affectionate, pretty child. 

You have seen Mr. Howells try it, and you have 
become acquainted with a number of very ill-bred 
young women, notably the insufferable younger Miss 
Kenton and the " impossible " Christine Dryfoos. (I 
believe it is proper here to use " impossible," which 



170 Love and Forty 

writers of the day treat like a lap dog and keep 
about their persons as a cherished pet. ) But if they 
had not been vulgar, they had not been at all. Com- 
pare them with the keen, half-hard, half-kindly Isa- 
bel March, — with her conscience to torment herself, 
and her eyeglass to torment poor March, and yet 
poetical, understanding, vivid, wholly feminine, 
even now and then womanly, — and set her in the 
company of those hysterical young persons in " A 
Woman's Reason," or even the indefinitely repel- 
lent " Lady of the Aroostook." Compare that 
most unpleasant woman of forty in " Indian Sum- 
mer," Mrs. Bowen, with the young girl Imogene, 
and though one pities poor Colville with all one's 
heart, as one pities all Mr. Howells' men, we can see 
how poor Imogene's crudenesses, her aspirations, 
her demand for a sacrifice at the altar, even to pro- 
viding the lamb in her own person, must have 
wearied the poor soul and stretched his neck and dis- 
torted his back, while, on the other hand, the woman 
of maturity understood him perfectly, made allow- 
ances for his masculine helplessness and incapacity, 
and, though she, too, must torment somebody with 
her conscience, made herself appear to him essentia!. 
He has not told me so, but in my own opinion 
Tolstoi's Anna Karenina was forty. " She had 
been," says Mr. Howells, with the chivalrous and 
tender lenity to women- which is his own most lovely 
characteristic, and which he ascribes to Tolstoi, 



Love and Forty 171 

*' a loving mother, a true friend, an obedient wife,'^ 
till gradually she lost her way, and blindly, grop- 
ingly, took the step that submerged her. She must 
have been forty when she paid that stolen visit to 
her little boy, matchlessly described, forty when she 
had gained all that she had passionately desired, 
and, finding its burden intolerable, cast herself 
under the railroad train. Not forty in years, it 
may be, but of that maturity of soul, with that un- 
erring sense of values that is forty's reward or pun- 
ishment. 

Of French authors it is not necessary to speak. 
Except in modern stories played in Alsace about the 
Lutheran pastor's family life, which Madame Bent- 
son has made a sort of vogue, and which are more 
moral than entertaining, the French do not recog- 
nise the jeiine Ulle; and in the novel of international 
life, except '' Daisy Miller," and its imitators, she 
is almost grotesquely futile. But in the Princess 
Saracinesca, all that is pure, noble, dignified, is em- 
bodied. She was not a young girl when Sant Ilario 
won her from her many suitors, but a woman of 
the age I am holding up for your admiration, when 
she was worshipped with passionate devotion by her 
husband and her sons. 

Of coarse I cannot tell how it is with one of 
another sex who has had several wives, and would 
finally renew his youth with a draught of a pure 
mountain stream, or, to throw aside the flowers of 



172 Love and Forty 

metaphor, has an ambition to exchange his dressing 
gown and sHppers for the unfriendly lobbies of 
ballrooms, waiting for a giddy young girl to get 
her fill of dancing. I am no Louis XII. married to 
Mary Tudor, who changed his dinner hour from 
ten A. M. to something like twelve or one, and per- 
ished a victim to a senile fancy six weeks after he 
had obtained this prize. I therefore do not speak 
from experience, but I know through literature that 
I would prefer to live, even were she forty, with 
Corona, than with Mr. Crawford's Cecelia, who, to 
be frank, makes me yawn. 

But Mr. Henry James is my Lady's most elo- 
quent advocate. Not that he, too, has been without 
his desire to draw the difficult young girl. He tried 
hard to make Nanda, in " The Awkward Age," 
interesting, and he has drawn a gentle and beauti- 
ful soul, besides conveying, — no, I am afraid to call 
it information, — we will say: the fact that these 
attributes can be possessed by the new-fashioned 
girl. But I myself care nothing for Nanda, and I 
only care for Aggie — that is — care to read about 
her — because she is a little cat. And Milly! — the 
Dove is mild, allusive. I saw a person the other 
day who professed — if I would listen to her — to be 
able to make me " realise," as they say, Milly. But 
this promise compelled my listening, which I have 
told you is a trial, and somehow did not carry with 
it weight. I think the woman was, in a way, sin- 



Love and Forty 173 

cere, but that she wanted to impress me. Milly is 
a perfume, a gentle breath of expiring air. She 
never was ahve. 

But when Mr. James sets out to paint the woman 
of forty, all that impalpability vanishes. He settles 
himself down to his work. I believe if he let him- 
self tell his story, as Mr. Howells tells his, — with 
that marvellous clearness of diction that sacrifices 
no effect to lucidity, — if he did not try to enrage his 
public with " irrelevant radiances," and " laby- 
rinthine parentheses," his portraits would knock us 
down with their likeness. There is Isabel, in 
" Portrait of a Lady," there is Christina Light, after 
she was the Princess Casamassima, there is Alice 
Dunbar, who had lived long enough to set love 
at the highest round and, to please him she 
loved, sacrificed herself to the convenience of 
another woman. There is the heroine of '' Broken 
Wings," in ''The Better Sort." The master 
does not heal the baffled worker's wounded spirit 
with recognition or success. He recompenses her 
for all she had endured by "a wonderful hue 
of gladness in her lost battle, and of freshness 
in her lost youth." Had she been the great person, 
the sought, the winner, poor Straith could not 
have brought to her his life of failure. But she 
was not. Her wings, too, had been broken and all 
that was left to^ either was courage. " ' But we 
have that, at least,' " she declared, " ' haven't we ? ' 



174 Love and Forty 

Standing there at her Httle high-perched window, 
which overhung grey housetops, they let the con- 
sideration of this pass between them in a deep look, 
as well as in a hush of which the intensity had some- 
thing commensurate. ' If we are beaten,' she then 
continued, ' let us then be beaten together.' She 
let herself go, he held her long and close for the 
compact." 

And May Bartram was not young even when 
poor Marcher gave her his burden to bear in '' The 
Beast in the Jungle." It was at the last, when she 
had the most to give him, that her wasted face deli- 
cately shone, and the secret — that she had loved 
him so much and he had never seen it — " glittered 
almost as with the white lustre of silver in her ex- 
pression." May Bartram was the picture at forty 
of a serene, exquisite, but impenetrable sphinx. 
She kept the Beast in the Jungle at bay. Beside 
her the poor creature who leaned on her was a piti- 
ful, contemptible thing, and yet, when she looked at 
him with her eyes, " still as beautiful as they had 
been in youth, only beautiful with a strange, cold 
light," the coldness melted, and she gave him the 
soft smile a mother bends on her child. 

Of course one forms one's own opinions, but even 
the exquisite ideality of the young women of Tour- 
gueneff fail to convince me that for the deeper in- 
timacies of life, the woman oi forty does not surpass 
in charm youth at its moment of dewy freshness. 



Love and Forty 175 

My experience with the objectionable young man 
who kept the birthday book, and a cloud of wit- 
nesses besides, including that of a debutante, — who 
declared that she knew how old all the girls at her 
dancing-class were, because, at a certain date, all 
appeared and there was not a front tooth at the 
party, — make it seem a pity to waste a good fib on 
one's age. Morality permits us few enough of these 
useful aids to the maintenance of peace and comfort, 
and if I were permitted to offer advice, I would 
say: Store up yours for absolute necessity, as the 
early settlers kept their cartridges till they were 
sure of their Indian. 

Not that it is insisted that we placard our backs 
with the fatal number. There should be distinctions 
between us and convicts in a State prison, but I am 
convinced that a sly way of circumventing our most 
intimate enemies is to follow Miverton's advice in 
'' Kenelm Chillingly," and " make the wig early." 
The contrast between white hair and young face will 
at once excite interest. " Was it in a single night ? " 
"Was it through shock or burglars?" '^ Was he 
drowned at sea?" Or that other dreadful thing 
they sometimes do — '' Did he marry the daughter of 
his master who took him into the business ? " 

And after a while we will get so wrought up be- 
cause the hair and face do not match that we will 
decide that she " has no age at all," as the maltster in 
" Far from the Madding Crowd " complained, whose 



176 Love and Forty 

sons, with filial pride, counted both his winters and 
his summers, rnade him a hundred and seventeen 
years old, and were properly discredited by the social 
club. And so, if we begin to put in the grey at 
twenty-five, when we have arrived indeed at forty and 
own to it, the truth will be taken as was the confes- 
sion of the good spies who came from Athens to 
Sparta, but, because they acknowledged it, failed to 
obtain the slightest credence. 



XVII 

Qnc'B ©wn 

\T the symposium the other night, which we 
xV. accidentally held at our house, we began to 
talk of the general attitude of people toward 

their own — meaning material things. F , who 

is a student, and rather a serious-minded young man, 
said that they were impedimenta, and the more you 
had in the way of pictures, bric-a-brac, or furniture, 
the less you had of liberty. And then he made this 
blood-curdling statement : " For my part, I wish I 
could build a fire in the street, and with my own 
hands throw into it, piece by piece, all my mother's 
furniture. First should go, and I would stand by 
and watch it burn, the old mahogany sideboard. 
When I was young, I was never allowed to open 
it, whatever my craving for bread and butter, lest 
I smear the brass scutcheons with my not immacu- 
late hands. Then all the drawing-room things should 
go because, for years, we have had to come back 
to town in October, to see that the moths were not 
in the sofas and chairs, and to superintend the lay- 
ing-down of the rugs. Then I should burn the house 

177 



178 One's Own 

itself, because, it having cost a great deal of money, 
my mother thinks it her duty to live in it instead 
of going to Europe, unincumbered, for an indefinite 
time. I do not," he went on, as if making a gen- 
erous concession, *' object to a comfortable bank 
account; for it lifts one from the vulgar necessity 
of making money; but things we own are weights 
to drag us down to earth. They are hostages which 
we pledge our lives to redeem. I heard a lady, who 
loved nature, say that she must leave the White 
Mountains last summer when the autumnal colours 
were just beginning to turn the forests into fairy 
land, because, did she not go home, the coachman 
would not exercise the horses, and they would get 
fat and lazy. ' Madam,' I said to her, ' are you 
going to let yourself be driven out of paradise by 
two dumb brutes of which, at any moment, you may 
rid yourself by the simplest commercial transaction ? ' 
To me, to own a thing means that I am under an obli- 
gation to it, and I regard anyone so encumbered as 
I do one who possesses a valuable dog ; for one must 
either do its will or be its guardian angel. I think 
that I should prefer to be the guardian angel of a 
dog rather that of a bit of old Sevres or a Daghestan 
rug, because there is excitement in the dog, and 
dulness in the rug. The dog may get the rabies, 
and both it and its owner may come to know the 
scientific methods employed at the Pasteur Institute; 
but no such unusual experience can be hoped for— 



One's Own 179 

even by a sanguine owner of a porcelain cup or a 
prayer carpet. If you would be free — and the reli- 
gious understand this, and only own the clothes on 
their backs and not them after they go to the laun- 
dry — possess your garments, your watch, and your 
cuff buttons — nothing more in the way of personal 
effects." 

While these remarks were being made, Janet's 
mamma was in a state of bewilderment that gradually 
approached that of frozen apathy, while Jane, poor 
wretch (I have been reading Pepys), wore a sickly 
smile, under the impression that the youth's remarks 
were a well-meant and entirely successful attempt 
to make our flesh creep. Then, we threw aside con- 
fessions of a personal nature, and talked about the 
way people in general regard their own, with the 
result that we added to our sum of human knowl- 
edge. 

All agreed that we put an ideal value upon our 
own. Sometimes it is a depreciated value, a lower 
estimate than the market price, oftener an increased 
and supposititious one that exists in our own imagi- 
nations. In the first instance, when a thing comes 
into our possession, it is no longer precious. Rosa- 
mond's blue jar was only a blue jar while it stood 
in the chemist's window ; once home, it was a stupid 
white one. For there are people who, from the very 
fact that a thing is theirs, underrate it. The gar- 
ment to which they extended eager hands is no 



i8o One's Own 

sooner in their grasp than, Hke the old lady in Miss 
French's story, they long to get home to give it pri- 
vate burial in the back yard. All their things travel 
the upward way, from drawing-room to garret, dis- 
gust culminating in the shed under the roof. I have 
a friend who wisely buys nothing, sure that her 
husband's sister, a capricious, unsatisfied soul, will 
furnish her house for her at greatly reduced rates, 
with purchases which, once hers, this accommodating 
law relation finds odious in her sight. 

But, between friends, though I feel it my duty 
to censure this vice in public, I do not think that it 
carries with it social unpopularity. The task of 
soothing a fellow creature is not without its pleasing 
features, and few there are who do not experience 
a sweetness in reconciling a frantic purchaser to an 
impossible lamp shade or a pictorial Smyrna rug. 
The opportunity to patronise, and gradually uplift 
another human being is one from which pure pleas- 
ure can be extracted. I have heard a person in whose 
taste I would not myself place implicit confidence, 
say, '' Oh, how I long to get my hands on her," and 
this, not for a purpose that would '' outrage decorum," 
as Lamb would say, but for a certain fondness, pro- 
duced by the sight of another woman not looking her 
best. I believe I have said it before, but it may as 
well be impressed upon you that, do you want to 
excite the affections of your lady friends, you must 
buy the unbecoming bonnet, or the unsightly vase. 



One's Own i8i 

Your worst enemy will be placated, is she present, 
when you are lamenting your rashness, and will 
really get to like you, while she is reconciling you 
to your misfortune. 

Now for the other illusion — that of people who 
regard their own with a smug complacency, simply 
because it is theirs — it is enough to make a by- 
stander, like Mrs. Jarley in the fulness of her wrath 
and the weakness of her means of vengeance, " al- 
most inclined to turn atheist." I suppose that no 
parent is responsible for her opinion about her chil- 
dren, but if you were going to give a luncheon next 
week and my invitation depended upon my attitude 
toward you, I could not, with composure, stand by 
and hear you proclaim with an air of satisfied vanity, 
of your little girl, " She is the vainest thing; takes 
half an hour to tie her hair ribbon." Nor can 
I understand why the neck of arrogance should be 
reared, because a child is obstinate or makes im- 
pertinent speeches. These evidences of talent, if, 
indeed, the parent is not too modest to ascribe them 
to her own strongly marked individuality, are traced 
with exultation to some ancestor, and you will see 
an otherwise sensible woman put on the manner of 
a newly bathed canary, upon some outburst of pas- 
sion from her little Henry, and declare, " Dear me ! 
his uncle, the Admiral, all over. I can almost hear 
him speak ! " But it is fair to say of the baby that 
he does not speak. Did he speak, I am sure his 



1 82 One's Own 

mamma would put her hands to her pretty ears. Of 
course, in other people's children these resemblances 
are not traced with such enthusiasm, but are regarded 
as offences to be expiated by long terms in state's 
prison. But, speaking of our own children and other 
people's children, ''Oh! the difference to me!" as 
Wordsworth put it in a familiar poem. 

In her simple and utterly-without-malice way, 
Jane took occasion to misconstrue the apologetic 
Touchstone, in conversing with one of these infatu- 
ated parents who was lauding the exploits of her 
offspring, and she let fall softly, " A poor thing, my 
Lords, but mine own." And, since we are out for 
disagreeable people, let me present you to those who 
are of a self-satisfaction that is even more difficult 
toi submit tO'. 

When we have bought a piano from the same 
manufacturer, at the same price, I do not like 
my neighbour to speak of her purchase as the 
superior instrument, because the agent was thankful 
to get it into her house as an advertisement, and so 
presented her with one of a higher grade than mine. 
The inference that our unaffected domicile does not, 
from a commercial point of view, possess the ad- 
vantages of her larger, more hospitable mansion, is 
not pleasing to my pride. '' A little sharp, you 
notice, in the upper octaves, I think," she is good 
enough to say of my Steinway. *' But the agent 
knew my sensitive ear, and then, too, — I can't see 



One's Own 183 

why, I am sure, — ^but this house is such a rendezvous 
for all sorts of people." 

And, as we live side by side, I do not like her to 
say that she gets all the sun, '' as you know." I do 
not know, but I am forced to have the appearance 
of knowing, rather than gratify her by losing my air 
of statuesque calm which, a common friend tells 
me, excites in her impotent rage. 

I also number among my acquaintances a lady 
who is possessed with such admiration for what is 
hers, that, though herself a great aristocrat, when 
her son married beneath him, she at once adopted 
the new daughter as her own, and found for her a 
pedigree, which she has framed and hung in a con- 
spicuous place in her drawing-room, lowering her 
own proud crest before that of her who was sup- 
posed to be without that ornament. '' Of course, 

your know she is a C ? " And then she breathes 

a name before which lesser flags drop their pennons. 

This able woman, when she discovers a defect in 
a vase that she has just bought, sheds no vain tears, 
but pronounces it an irregularity significant of the 
fact that it is " handmade." And if the new rug 
refuses to assume the manner of rugs, and is crooked, 
and wider in the middle than at either end, this, too, 
is but a proof of preciousness and originality of de- 
vice. " I regard it," she was known to say of a 
Persian bit that looked like a camel's hump, " I 
regard it as I would a signed artist's proof." 



184 One's Own 

I am almost ashamed to speak of sickness again, 
for, looking over this volume, I see so many refer- 
ences to it. And yet sickness has so great a part in 
the list of things that we are proud of — not only our 
own illnesses, but those of others with whom we 
claim kinship or intimacy — that I cannot ignore it. 
It is human to assume that a severe illness is a virtue, 
and that the loss of an appendix should be as much 
a source of arrogance as was the loss of his burden 
to Christian in the *' Pilgrim's Progress." Janet's 
mamma bore, but recently, the fatigues of having a 
dress fitted, on the sultriest of days, because during 
that process the dressmaker related the details of her 
father's recent attack of asthma. It was a subject 
of pride to have a dressmaker who had a parent 
who stood in the doorway with his tongue hanging 
x)ut while five doctors worked on him. Three of 
these doctors prepared the family for the worst by 
assuring them that, if he did get well, he '' wouldn't 
be any use to himself," but would probably emerge 
from the situation fancying himself a bear or Julius 
Csesar, or indulging in any one of the vagaries which, 
had they recovered, sick people would certainly have 
insisted on — to the shame of the survivors. To have 
such a connection, I repeat, gave Janet's mamma the 
same sort of distinction that she felt when she slept 
in the bed once occupied by Charles I. Pride, 
even in vicarious suffering, is perfectly natural, and 
though such a father — in such a situation — was not 



One's Own 185 

given to Jane or me, still we were the flower upon 
which the surcharged cloud shed its moisture. The 
refreshment was not of ourselves, but we enjoyed its 
bounty. We were not the rose, but we came within 
a needle's prick of it. 

Then we glory in our own personal peculiarities, 
and even in our relations' peculiarities. Last time I 
took tea with you, reader, you insinuated your 
superiority to your kind because you never eat butter. 
Not that you asserted that a fondness for this article 
of food is, in itself, degenerating; but you would have 
me think that you are not as others, and have your 
eccentricities. An aversion to milk or sugar in one's 
coffee, — a faintness from the odour of strawberries, 
a dislike to vanilla as a seasoning, — have done more 
to make people conceited than the retention of their 
baptismal innocence. To go further — I have seen 
a person give herself airs because she had an aunt- 
in-law who had a horror of cats, and had convulsions 
when approached by one. And to prove what I say 
about this peculiar form of vanity, I will confess 
to you that I had a sense of superiority to my neigh- 
bours because, last spring, I had a guest who swal- 
lowed a darning-needle. A feat of so unusual a 
character presupposed a visitor with a mouth of 
unusual proportions, and a physician of exceptional 
skill, to restore this implement of industry to its 
original use ; and, though affecting indifference, both 
Jane and I were not without arrogance in harbour- 



1 86 One's Own 

ing so rare an invalid. Of course, a thoughtful per- 
son cannot help running this peculiarity of human 
nature to earth, and trying to find out why we are 
proud of our eccentricities, regardless of the fact that 
they do not militate to our well-being, or augment 
our good looks. There are some doughty spirits 
that so accept misfortune. That brave lady we've 
all heard about, who was taunted with the fact that 
her second cousin had twice served a term in State 
prison. But her enemies did not know the warrior 
that hid behind the white apron. '' If it had been 
your cousin," she said, ''he'd have never got out to 
commit the second murder." 

Now a single confidence the more. There is one 
paramount claim to superiorities on account of per- 
sonal belongings, before which the proud possessor 
of a disease or a twisted rug or a broken bit of china, 
or even an antipathy to some innocuous thing, sinks 
into insignificance. In a sentence^ — there is no pride 
like the pride in cellars. Our rooms may be small, 
we are a little family, the pantry is not soul-satisfy- 
ing, but the cellar ! It is so dry that consumptives go 
down there instead of taking an expensive journey 
to California. It is so cool in summer that the family 
stay at home, rather than seek foreign and unknown 
mountainous climes, and pass their solstice in its 
depths, playing cards and amusing themselves. In 
winter, people raise bulbs and babies in its benign 
atmosphere. As for devotions — well, a friend car- 



One's Own 187 

ried Jane and me down cellar in her new house the 
other day, and there was such a breadth of tiled 
floor, such a cathedral-like vault, that we felt solemn, 
and thougfht of suggesting it for the new church, 
instead of carrying out that Tudor-Gothic idea of a 
place of worship, to which is attached a lean-to, com- 
prising a kitchen, a laundry and a gymnasium; a 
work that, seen on paper — we have regarded, as did 
the great Doctor Johnson the dome of St. Paul's — 
" with respect, if not comprehension." 



XVIII 
One's IRelattons 

THE attitude of those who have relations to 
those who have none is that of unmixed 
superiority. The feehng" is that it is shiftless 
not to have relations, just as it is shiftless not 
to like Irish potatoes. And undoubtedly relations 
are a protection. However much we may dislike 
our Uncle Thomas, we would not want to see him 
in state's prison, and when Cousin Camilla is de- 
famed, the common blood in our veins tingles. 

But a relation is one with whose disposition and 
even whose character we use a certain liberty. We 
protect her against the world, but not against our- 
selves. When relations displease us, we do not wish 
to remit the punishment, but we insist upon being 
ourselves the executioner. The world has progressed, 
but not so far, I think, that it is safe to abuse a sister 
to a brother, or an aunt to a niece. Perhaps in the 
age of perfect justice and candour, which is fast ap- 
proaching, this liberty will be exercised; but just 
now, when Mrs. Smith complains of her Uncle 
John's conduct of the family estate, Jane and I, 

i88 



One's Relations 189 

while we assume an attitude of sympathy, do not 
join in the condemnation, but rather pay a wary 
tribute to the business quahties of the lady's distin- 
guished house. What people will resent, and what 
they will not resent, is worth the study of a metaphy- 
sician ; but it is pretty safe to say that abuse of one's 
relations is an employment in which one may exercise 
one's self without assistance. 

These remarks may be complained of as common- 
place, but they are not without their soundness or 
appropriateness. We have seen an affectionate, but 
bewildered groom thrown into a state of hurt aston- 
ishment because, when he alluded to an aunt of his 
bride as '' that crafty and ill-natured old woman," 
adding: ''Well, she shall never come here, I will 
see to that ! " his lady flew into a passion, and gave 
dark hints that, if he did not like her people, well, she 
would go back to her mamma. '' But you, my dear, 

you yourself told me " '' And suppose I did? I 

never pretended that she was an angel, but I know 
she is quite as good as your Cousin Ann." 

This, the inexperienced person will say is not 
argument, but it has all the weight of reasoning the 
most convincing. 

The bride was offended, and the groom made peace 
at the cost of an invitation from his own lips to the 
objectionable Aunt Matilda. And in justice to mas- 
culine denseness of perception, and bulldog tenacity 
of impression, it must be added that, although he 



190 One's Relations 

outwardly yielded, this opinion of Aunt Matilda did 
not change with acquaintance. She was always 
to him the '' ill-natured old woman," pictured by his 
fiancee in the early days when they shared every 
thought. For, while it is well for the confidant to 
preserve a non-committal front when the confider 
serves up her relations on hot toast, it is well, on the 
other hand, for her to remember that she is making 
an impression, though an astute listener will not be- 
tray the fact. The trouble is that when one complains 
to one's husband of one's relations the creature, who 
is by nature deprived of imagination and is mentally 
and through training entirely literal, supposes that 
because our Aunt Matilda criticised our conduct at 
the ball, or our Cousin Amelia left us out of her 
house party, our resentment will take the form of an 
open breach, judging, as he will explain, from the 
feelings we express concerning them. He does not 
understand, nor do I believe he is capable of under- 
standing, that ebullitions of disapprobation are our 
form of letting off steam, and that having called our 
Aunt Matilda — well, having called our Aunt Matilda 
an old cat, and our cousin a time-server, we have 
really injured them to the top of our bent, and are 
quite willing to have them in to tea, and to go with 
them to the dressmaker's. 

On account, then, of the hopeless incapacity of the 
other sex to divine this delicate mental condition, I 
would counsel all young married people, when in- 



One's Relations 191 

censed against their relations, to write a letter about 
them, and then destroy it. This will afford a safety 
valve, and burned letters do not have to be explained 
away. Alphonzo will not retain the faintest memory 
of Cousin Camilla, whom his Sophronia loves; but 
he will keep every fragment of the conversation in 
which Aunt Matilda figured as the enemy of rodents, 
and when the latter is in town for a day, and anxious 
to see her dear niece, will present the record, written 
out upon a fair piece of paper, and daring the partner 
of his life to deny any statement upon its incontro- 
vertible page, he will forbid an affectionate aunt the 
house. 

Now that it is understood that we are for rela- 
tions, considering them a part of a well-regulated 
household, and approaching the value of '' My cou- 
sin, the General," and '' My great-uncle, the Sena- 
tor," we feel freer to speak of some little inconven- 
iences attending their possession. She who is under 
a servile fear of another is the slave of that other, 
and can never know real happiness till the tyrant is 
removed. And yet all of us who are not foundlings 
are under just such bondage, and make a fetich of 
some vague figure whose lineaments we are not very 
familiar with, and yet who exercises over us a 
strange but irresistible influence. For example: I 
never prepare to take a step pleasing to myself (but 
for that reason to be looked on with suspicion^ that I 
4o not s^e Igoming up before rpe the ample figure 



192 One*s Relations 

and the magisterial front of a relation who is known 
in the connection as '' your Cousin Paulina." In 
truth, she who addresses you has not seen this im- 
pressive personage since her youth, but, perhaps from 
the fact that her sway has extended through two 
generations, I am subtly conscious that in some inex- 
plicable way '' Cousin Paulina " knows what I am 
about, and in each crisis I am impelled to ask myself 
the question, '' What would Cousin Paulina think of 
it ? " And it is another feature of the case that she 
always turns a glance of chilling disapprobation 
upon any particularly agreeable scheme, and though 
I do not go so far as to say she arrests its fulfilment, 
I do say she takes from it the elemental joy. 

And not only does this intangible influence impress 
itself upon a but too yielding character. Self-sus- 
tained independent minds are affected by her opinion. 
But lately I was standing on my stoop, planning 
with singular light-heartedness a scheme in which 
a common relation of my Cousin Paulina and my- 
self was to take part, when suddenly she paused, 
hesitated, and the fatal question framed itself upon 
her lips. " But, do you think Cousin Paulina would 
approve?" It is true we got no answer: Cousin 
Paulina is in California, but the disapprobation had 
been suggested, and the charm had fled. A found- 
ling could not with propriety refer to her cousin, the 
Duchess of Marlborough, nor to her grandfather, 
" the Governor" ; but then she would never have to 



One*s Relations 193 

consider her Cousin Paulina. I hope I have ex- 
pressed my disapprobation of this undetached class 
of persons, but I intimate that even obscurity has its 
compensations. 

In this wholesale commendation of relations, I sup- 
pose it is understood that it is of one's own relations 
I speak. When it comes to that artificial relation- 
ship which is established by marriage, there is little 
to say. As has been intimated in many places and at 
many times, an orphan in wealthy circumstances is 
the prize upon which every affectionate mother 
should bid her child fix its ambition. A great deal 
has been said about mothers-in-law, but very little 
is done, probably because a mother-in-law has not 
that quality of self-effacement -which is said to be 
the characteristic of the real parent. And yet there 
are instances when a mother has been willing to be 
blotted out to effect a union between her son and an 
heiress. '' I understand that she objects to a mother- 
in-law," says the Dowager Lady Strafford, writing 
to her son whose marriage with the homely, but 
vastly rich Miss Trotman, she was endeavouring to 
further, " so pretend that I am dead, and I will do 
my best not to undeceive her." 

The disposition, however, to criticise law relations 
is so human, so inherent, that I know you will thank 
me for a suggestion that all intelligent persons enter- 
ing families may avail themselves of. I cribbed it 
frorn the moral pages of Augustus J. C. Hare, whos^ 



194 One's Relations 

'' Memorials of a Quiet Life " has rested with 
" Drops of Dew " and other spiritual refreshments 
upon many a bedside table, and stimulated to a higher 
life. A noble English lady, having married into a 
family where the living were worshipped, and even 
the departed spoken of with respect, found her en- 
forced silence burdensome to the degree that she re- 
sorted to the following device : " Finding that he 
could not bear that I find fault with any of his kin, 
however remote, I offered to compromise with him. 
I told him if he would give me his great-grandfather 
I would spare the rest." 

It seems to Jane and me that a fairer proposition 
was never made ; for it is often not the individual we 
complain of, but the condition, which forces us into 
unnatural relations with people whom we may learn 
to like, but whom custom requires us to like, what- 
ever the difference in bringing up, education, and 
general ideas. Perhaps, then, instead of persuading 
your Alphonzo to care for Aunt Matilda, you will 
give her to him to serve as he will, and for your own 
part be content with his fascinating Cousin Maude, 
who was really more like a sister than a cousin to him 
before his marriage. 

" Nil nisi " — but there are circumstances when 
it is necessary. Deceased relations would be safe 
from all criticism if only their progeny would not 
talk about them and bring them into disrepute. Not 
one disrespectful syllable would ever tarnish the 



One's Relations 195 

fair fame of that benefactor of his country, your 
great-great-grandfather, the Signer, nor of that 
other pillar of your house, the Chief Justice, if only 
you refrained from introducing them uninvited into 
our society, and did not force us to hear the story of 
their distinguished talents and, through inference, 
yours, their descendant's. 

Not that I think you consciously guilty of im- 
piety, dear lady, but in your well-meant effort to ex- 
plain to totally uninterested parties how you came 
by your proud title of Colonial Dame, you have 
thrust your ancestor into our presence, and com- 
pelled us, in moments of freedom, when your 
back is turned, to speak of him as " that insuf- 
ferable old bore." And were he permitted to 
speak, how he would writhe and twist under 
the epithet, your ancestor, the silver-tongued, the 
exquisite, who was so particular about the com- 
pany he kept, so haughty in his mien. If you 
must do injustice to some one of your relations, 
choose your Aunt Matilda, who, I understand, has 
weapons of her own with which to retaliate, but spare 
the Chief Justice and the Signer, who really deserve 
better of this generation than to be known as " Mrs. 
's everlasting old grandfathers.'' 



XIX 

JANE and Janet's mamma have given a great 
deal of thought to the subject of friendship. 
We beheve in it, we think very httle else is worth 
while, and yet we have seen it die, and that from 
no especial breach between friends, but from en- 
nui. And the cause of this weariness of the so- 
ciety in which we once took pleasure is, I think, in 
some instances explained by the fact that people do 
not become friendly through selection, and a mutual 
drawing to each other, but because they find it easy 
and convenient to associate. Nothing can be more 
alluring than an intimacy between neighbours, 
especially if they move in the same circle of society. 
A neighbour's house is a sort of refuge. Under the 
present scrupulous regime, when it is wicked and 
silly to tell a social fib, we go through the form of 
being " next door," when the chairman of the re- 
freshment committee calls to know what we would 
be happy and thankful to donate to the entertain- 
ment for the benefit oi orphans in Afghanistan. Not 
even the spotless integrity of Seraphina is stained 

196 



Friendship 197 

when she says " Not at home." I shall, for more 
reasons than one, never call the roof of my neigh- 
bour's third story " home." And besides, when one 
has an empty half hour, what more grateful than a 
chat in a teagown in which one has just *' slipped 
over," with a person with whom we have friends in 
common and who, when we speak of " the dinner," 
knows exactly what dinner, or of '' Mrs. Smith's 
sleeves," exactly what '' Mrs. Smith's sleeves." 

Alas! but it is true that common dressmakers, or 
even common acquaintances, are not firm founda- 
tions for friendship. People may see each other 
every day and not know one instant's community of 
thought or feeling — '' not," as Schopenhauer says, 
" a fleeting glance of recognition in another's soul 
of a fundamental likeness to our own." 

And the awakening comes about in so natural a 
way that it is like a surgical operation, beautiful and 
stimulating. Propinquity has allowed us to cast off 
those protective measures by which society guards 
against familiarity; and one fine morning the friend 
who has been made a friend because our houses ad- 
join, comes in, unasked, upon another visitor whom 
she happens not tO' know, and in whose interests she 
has no part. The effect of her presence is that of 
a relation at a dinner party. The side of us, the in- 
tellectual side, the ethical, the poetical side, it may be, 
that side which is our better part, she has never 
known, and her '' Don't mind me, I am at home," 



198 Friendship 

while perfectly true and justifiable under the circum- 
stances, suddenly awakes in us a cold chill of repul- 
sion. We were perhaps talking about the '' Recit 
d'une Soeur," and when she came in were quoting 
that inimitable passage in which Alexandrine, at 
Albert's grave, tells her heart to his sister. But the 
friend, made through propinquity, has never seen 
us in this mood and stares at us with curious, scru- 
tinising eyes, the kind of eyes with which a rogue 
would look at another rogue whom he surprised 
preaching in cassock and surplice. The shock of 
discovery is as great on one side as on the other. 
We find that never could we have spoken to her as 
we were just speaking, and she is puzzled, distrust- 
ful. Is her friend a poseur, and is this the sort of 
thing she does behind her back ? 

Sometimes, after a revelation like this, two 
people hold on to each other lest they sin against 
loyalty, and then comes the strain that one day will 
break the bond. For my part, I can give you no ad- 
vice but to say " Move, or wear her as you would 
a hair shirt." And, while we are on this melan- 
choly subject, one might remark that the falling- 
off O'f friendship is often due to the fact that we are 
not content to be her friend, we must be her saviour. 
People have gotten in the habit of using as much 
slang about friendship as about teaching. They talk 
about being " illuminating," " helpful "; they do not 
think they have fulfilled the demands of affection 



Friendship 199 

unless they have assumed the role of guardian 
angel. The friend wants you to know her friends, 
to read her favourite authors even — for there are 
friendships that are as well for the body as for the 
soul, — to employ her own dressmakers and her own 
doctors. Jane, at one period of her career, went 
about with what you and I would call a duster round 
her neck, a grey-green duster at that, and a long, 
formless wrapper that gave her the appearance of a 
bolster from which the feathers had dropped, be- 
cause her long, svelte, Blessed Demoiselle of a bosom 
friend had taken a fancy to wear Liberty things. 
For myself, my intimacy came near costing me dear. 
I had a friend who appeared one day with five grains 
of arsenic which she told me she had resolved to ad- 
minister at one dose, not because her intentions were 
murderous, but because she fancied me pale, and 
had forgotten the precise prescription given her, 
under similar circumstances, by her unsurpassed 
physician. 

Another strain on friendship is the way people re- 
quire you to help their friends, who indeed are 
nothing to you, but whom they ask you to treat as 
if they were a combination of the virtues that drew 
the original parties together. 

I may as well confess that Jane and I are the sort 
of people who are never at a loss to know our duty, 
because we have friends who do not hesitate to re- 
mind us of it. Sometimes they tell us what to do 



200 Friendship 

over the telephone; sometimes we are attacked at the 
club, on the street. Sometimes orders are prefaced 
with flattery. It has happened that we have been 
told to subscribe to the education of a person in 
China who had professed a wish to discard Shinto- 
ism for Christianity — and had been told like this — 

*' Knowing your piety, your signal zeal " But 

oftener meaning is not overladen with flowers of 
metaphor. It was through the telephone that our 
particular friend informed us that her friends — 
the Misses Mills, such nice girls, — used to every- 
thing and now reduced, — had made up their minds 
that the way to make an easy, independent liv- 
ing, was to sell tea, privately, of course, and 
only to their friends or their friend's friends. 
" You and Jane will, of course, get your tea 
henceforth from them," came over the tube, not 
trippingly on the tongue, but with the voice of com- 
mand. *' And how much would we take? It would 
be the expensive kind, of course. The Mills girls 
could make nothing except on expensive teas." 
Well, we took the tea. Elvira's tone was that of 
one who did not in the least care what you did to 
HER. She was ready to bear all that, but she was 
sensitive about her friends. I said that we took the 
tea, and I may add that we probably took more tea 
and at a greater price than we had ever ordered be- 
fore. And people met us on the street and asked if 
we had seen the Mills since they began to sell 



Friendship 2oi 

tea — such nice girls, and so careful to keep up — 
flowers on the table and such linen. Of course, with 
such refined people no matter what they ate it was 
dainty and was properly served, but I noticed that 
nothing was said about what they drank. I there- 
fore concluded that the Mills girls patronised a 
rival firm. For the tea was of a greenness that left 
its mark in the cup, of a bitterness that caused the 
lethargic John to inquire whether we were " looking 
out for things " — darkly suspecting Seraphina of 
her old chemical experiments, while Janet declared 
that she was glad it did taste so, for now mamma 
and Aunt Jane would give up an enervating feminine 
habit. Easier said than done. We had up to this 
time entertained the opinion that taxes were regu- 
lar. They were unreliable as a this spring's pullet 
in the matter of egg-laying, in comparison to the 
punctuality of the Mills girls, bearing their copperas- 
tasting decoction. Such nice girls, whom it was a 
privilege to help! 

But the Mills would have been taken as the bit- 
ter drop with Elvira's sweetness and more tea 
bought from one whose private character was a 
matter of indifference, and we should have saved 
the money by wearing last year's hats (the Mills 
themselves have very pretty, entirely modish hats), 
had not another friend commanded us to buy our 
coffee from her friends, the Gills. What's in a 
name? Believe me, nothing, else I should have 



202 Friendship 

given what these ladies called '' Java and Mocha 
blend," and put up in neat, ladylike boxes, to the 
fastidious James and heard no more about it. But 
that which we call Mocha and Java does not smell 
the sweeter nor taste the more like coffee because 
these respectable titles are assigned to it. No mat- 
ter what the merchant's position in society, or how 
anxious they are to be independent of their brother 
who wishes to marry — the La Guayra and Rio sold 
by them have their own taste and their own smell. 
From a craven fear lest, in her self-seeking, she pre- 
vent a person whom she does not know from wed- 
ding another person with whom she is equally un- 
acquainted, Janet's mamma gave the Gills' coffee 
to the church fair and bought more. At present, 
not only is she clothed in her old hat, but she has a 
purely vicarious pleasure in seeing the Gills wear 
smart winter coats. 

But what our friends made us do for their friends 
did not end here. We were told that it was our duty 
to patronise the Dennys. The Dennys had been 
very civil to our relation Belinda; she had accepted 
their hospitality and she now called upon her family 
to wipe out this debt. They were rich, but they 
cherished the sentiment that what they gave to the 
cause of religion should come out of their own self- 
sacrifice. They therefore set up a millinery estab- 
lishment, the profits of which were to go to the re- 
ligious instruction of a Turk who kept an Oriental 



Friendship 203 

bazaar, and who, while professing a desire to aban- 
don Mahometanism, was not at all clear as to which 
sect of Christianity he would adopt, his attitude de- 
pending a good deal upon a secret knowledge as to 
where the right people worshipped. To tell the 
truth, the Dennys' bonnets were not cheap, but there 
were those dinners eaten by our friend Belinda, there 
was the Dennys' sense of unexpiated sin, and, as 
Miss Priscilla remarked when she tried a particu- 
larly unbecoming bonnet on Jane, — " For what is 
so dear " (presumably the wily Turk's theological 
opinions) " we must pay dearly." She said it in 
the manner of Saint Francis de Sales when he 
offered advice to his disciple Philothea. 

The Falls, gratified by the sight of their native 
city arrayed in the head gear as obviously the work 
of one hand as Hamlet and Lear, and the expression 
of the individuality of three prim old ladies, then 
announced that they would make party costumes. 
Our tie with the Falls was that Jane had gone to 
Europe one summer on the steamer with their aunt, 
who was seasick and required my relation to sit by 
her in a stuffy cabin for a week and receive contra- 
dictory instructions concerning her will. Having 
seen dear Janet in a Falls confection copied out of 
Harper's Bazar, and looped up with myriads of little 
fringed bows, the thought of the artistic Miss Muriel 
Falls, a young man who had dined with us twice and 
gone so far as to ask the child whether she liked 



204 Friendship 

caterpillar green for a sitting-room wall paper — ^be- 
took himself across the way to a girl who is exceed- 
ingly unpopular with amateur merchants, but gets 
her things from Madame George. 

The Falls' cousins frankly compelled patronag*e 
by a demand to be able to go to New York when 
they felt like it, and ordered their friends' friends to 
buy a deed without a name that looked like mo- 
lasses candy, but produced a disease of a malign na- 
ture resembling epilepsy. 

These are a few of the things that militate against 
steady friendship between women. We take a good 
deal for granted when we expect Margaret and 
Maude to like each other just because both like 
Mary. We are many-sided and show one acquaint- 
ance one aspect of our nature, and another another. 
She who addresses you, though she would not term 
herself a complex character, has a friend who knows 
her on the shirt-waist side, another on the health 
question; there is an obscure and lonely lady, a little 
deaf and wholly lame, who knows her through her 
travels which she recounts on Sunday afternoons, 
and she has friends to whom she boldly talks theol- 
ogy. But it is no easy matter to explain this vari- 
ety to the two friends whom she would make love 
each other because they both love her. She to whom 
I talk shirt waists has too her other sides, and, do I 
commend her to one whom I fancy would be con- 
genial, I find that it is for me that she has reserved 



Friendship 205 

this intimate matter and that with other people she 
talks psychology or displays social ambition. " Did 

you see G , and didn't you hit it off exactly? " 

I eagerly demand. Alas! she did see G , 

but More than once I have had the mortifica- 
tion of hearing one of the two people I would have 
brought together remark, in that suspicious way — 
you recognise it, ladies — as if she had been en- 
trapped, " I dare say it was my fault, but I evidently 
did not attract your intimate friend, Mrs. Brown." 
Mrs. Brown had not exhibited her shirt-waist side. 
There is another friendship. It is that which ex- 
ists between married people, and I have come to the 
conclusion that the most perfect friendships of this 
difficult relation are those where the wife is older 
that the husband. A very young man, despising his 
youth and ardently desiring to be rid of its reproach, 
naturally admires what he does not possess. A 
woman of thirty appears a goddess of wisdom and 
a marvel of attainment to a boy of nineteen, and her 
maturity is the strongest appeal to his imagination. 
The knowledge of the world which he is shame- 
facedly conscious of lacking is hers through experi- 
ence. Freshness to him is vealiness, and the gayety 
of heart of a girl of his own age jars upon his mel- 
ancholy and romantic spirit. And then, my young 
gentleman does not win his prize without an effort. 
A very delicate, distant reference has been made to 
the way young ladies occasionally construe flippant 



2o6 Friendship 

words from irresponsible youths. But a woman 
who has passed the Rubicon unmarried, or has mar- 
ried and become free again, really seldom wishes, 
unless forced by poverty, to re-enter the marriage 
state. A great many unseemly jests have been made 
on the subject of the re-marriage of widows and the 
willingness of maiden ladies to marry, but the fact 
is that most women, having made up their minds as 
to what their lives are going to be, and adjusted 
themselves to their responsibilities, shrink from the 
unknown. Therefore they are by no means to^ be 
gotten down by the first hard shaking. If a boy of 
twenty-five wants to marry a woman of forty, he 
has to swing on to the tree and agitate it with all 
his might and strength. Jane and I know a canny 
yO'Uth who sent word to his chum's mamma, at 
whose house he had been staying, that he had been 
drowned, warily choosing the day when she was giv- 
ing a tea. Herself a mother, and entirely as a 
mother, the lady fainted, whereupon the lover ran 
in; and when she came to she found herself being 
soothed to happiness by reassuring words, uttered 
by a person upon whose stalwart shoulder she was — • 
well, she was resting. As she had refused him, so 
she had foolishly told him, from dread of what 
people would say, the youth remarked to her, quot- 
ing Virginius, " ' My own dear little girl, there is no 
way but this.' Now that you have exhibited your 
feelings, you must have a right to express them." 



Friendship 207 

When I saw them the other day, I was reminded 
of a large, comfortable, grey cat, in whose society 
a spry and frisky kitten sported. She cast an in- 
dulgent eye on his pranks and one could see that he 
would fly to her in time of danger. 

The fact is that winning an elderly bride is 
fraught with such excitement and promises so many 
adventures that men are spurred on to it as to boar- 
hunting or scaling the Matterhorn. Nor does the 
fear that he will lose his romance shadow the peace 
of the mature wife. People have warned him — she 
has warned him — that he will get tired. But the 
memory of that sharp, hard contest is fresh in his 
mind, and the determination not to verify another's 
'' I told you so," keeps him up to his work. In the 
matter of devotion to his elderly spouse, he puts to 
shame the gallantry of the husband of the young 
wife, just as the stepmother, with her beautiful care 
and sympathy, utterly casts the natural mother into 
dark and profound obscurity. 

And while we are on this subject, I might as w^ell 
call your attention to the fact that the elderly brides 
get the poets, the novelists, the dreamers. Artists, 
especially, have a passion for marrying elderly 
women with whom they have been long on terms 
of friendship and whom they have become accus- 
tomed to. I recall a Florentine painter, an Adonis 
of a youth, who ran away with a mature governess 
who had contracted to teach a cross child, but re- 



2o8 Friendship 

belled when it came to exercising two Skye terriers. 
She had been in the habit of making him tea when 
he went to her employer's palazzo, rainy afternoons, 
and afterwards putting on his coat and bidding him 
look out for an innocuous tickle that he had in his 
throat. 

After their runaway (though I am sure I do not 
know what they ran from, unless, like Browning, 
it was from the two dogs; though, after all, it was 
not like Browning, for he was required to run away 
zvith a dog — and more — a dog that tried to bite 
him) Jane and I went to see them in their pretty 
villa in the Bella Sguardo. He was painting a por- 
trait of an enchanting American girl, but that young 
miss might as well have rolled her eyes at the broken- 
nosed Mercury in the garden. The wife sat by and 
sewed on buttons, and now and then went out to 
look after a savoury little ragout which she was 
stewing on the kitchen stove. Her air was that of 
George Sand to Flaubert : " I too have been young 
and subject to indigestion; but all that is past, and 
yO'U shall have your little recreations." 

In contemplating this couple and many others, 
where the happiness of marriage is founded upon 
friendship, and a sense of repose in the heart of 
the man, I have realised the wisdom of the canon of 
the Church of England, which forbids a man to 
marry his grandmother. Grandmothers have always 
been more popular with boys than mothers, and the 



Friendship 209 

relation that my artist friend held to his wife irre- 
sistibly recalled that irresponsible but delightful 
relation. For to any wife her husband is a sort of a 
little boy, while, to an elderly wife, he is not a son 
whom she must train, but a grandson whom she may 
conscientiously spoil. Now that they have taken 
away original sin, it seems to me that a sensible man 
ought to substitute for that featherbed, a grand- 
motherly wife, who will make excuses for him and 
not attempt to regulate him. This is the friendship 
between married people which, it seems to me, is 
placed on a firm footing. The most experienced 
people tell me that the week after marriage no man 
has the slightest idea what his wife looks like. 
When women get lost, the police have the greatest 
difficulty in getting an accurate description of the 
missing one. When a husband is interrogated as 
to the colour of her eyes, '' usual " springs to his 
lips; as to the form of her features, "ordinary" 
is on tap. Nor, in reading over the reports of these 
tragedies, have Jane and I ever found that a man 
could tell his wife's age. I hope you will excuse the 
phrase, but, even on these trying occasions, he is 
apt to speak of her as '' the old lady." 

And for examples of marital happinessi — when 
the husband has not taken Shakespeare's advice — 
they are at your service, and they are generally the 
result of propinquity, of a cleverness in making little 
toothsome dainties, a trick of inquiring for " the 



2 1 o Friendship 

old trouble," which made Disraeli's fortune, and a 
tender understandingness, a grandmother-like trait. 
Here is Khadijah, twenty years lay between her and 
her inspired Mahomet, as many between Madame 
de Stael and the youthful Rocca, again as many be- 
tween Lady Beaconsfield and the Premier of Eng- 
land. The elderly Eleanor buried her Henry and 
saw the fair Rosamonde beneath the sod, Diane de 
Poitiers wore black at fifty for her royal lover, who 
died at thirty-three. Madame de Maintenon was 
four years older than her Olympian spouse. " Dear 
Tetzy " was twice as old as Doctor Johnson. 
Madame Mohl, Mrs. Browning, George Eliot, Mrs. 
Kingsley, Mrs. Stevenson, the Empress Josephine, 
Lady Castlewood, Felicite de Touches, the Duchess 
de Carigliano, the Duchess de Langeais, Balzac's 
own Egeria, Madame Hanska — are they not all 
written in the book? It was to no blooming bride 
that the preface to the "Weir of Hermiston " was 
written, no young and ardent maid inspired " One 
Word More," or " At the Fireside." Those im- 
passioned epistles, written by the camp-fire by the 
greatest of all soldiers, were addressed to a woman 
already faded and whose life was full to- its brim in 
experiences in which he had no part. But, as was 
said by another man tO' another woman., between 
whose ages there was as great a difference as be- 
tween the ages of Josephine and Napoleon, " This 
circumstance, taken by itself, might seem likely to 



Friendship 2 1 1 

drive our lives asunder. It was, hov^ever, but an 
accident. It was essentially of no account. She 
stood, a commanding presence, between an accom- 
plished past and a hopeful future." 

Jane tells me that, in my enthusiasm in advocating 
the popular fad, that of letting the predominance of 
years be on the side of the woman, I have not suffi- 
ciently insisted upon certain qualities oi friendship 
in marriage. I should have said, and I say it now, 
that people should like the same amusements, and, if 
possible, the same books. They should have com- 
panionship in each other. And yet the real friend- 
ships of life, even those married friendships which 
I so earnestly advocate, are founded upon struc- 
tures which are at variance with all which I have 
said, and, were I troubled with narrow ideas about 
consistency, I would consign these remarks to the 
flames. Only the other day I happened upon two 
ladies of middle age who were visiting together. 
They called each other by their Christian names, but 
I doubt if at any instant in their lives they had felt 
the electric spark that makes us one. They had 
known each other from childhood, so there was no 
mysterious, debatable ground that either feared to 
tread upon ; they had been to school together, and so 
spoken to each other of their faults and their un- 
becoming bonnets. They have a number of com- 
mon friends, and they have this bond : they heartily 
dislike the same somewhat obtrusive family which 



2 1 2 Friendship 

occupies a good deal of room in their local society. 
As to advice, each gives it with freedoim, but seldom 

takes it. Fanny V thinks Mohie R cares 

a great deal too much for jewelry, and Mollie is of 
opinion that, should her friend adopt high-necked 
gowns, it would be more becoming, at her age. But 
does there come a time for friendship to show her 
cerulean hues, these women are to each other a prop 

and a stay. When Fanny V got varioloid, 

Mollie R shut herself up with her and defied 

the health officers. And that time, that dreadful 
time, when grief closed over one, her friend cut 
all other cords and, by main strength of will and 
indomitable purpose, carried her through. To be 
sure, these ladies disagree, and, being human, criti- 
cise each other, but the common-sense foundation 
of their relations prevents misunderstandings. And 
then there is nothing new to learn. Once I saw an 
old servant in tears because her mistress, a stern 
woman, was going to break up her establishment 
and would have no further need of Margaret. 
"But you have another home," I said; "and she 
was cross and exacting, you know it, Margaret." 
But Margaret did not cease to weep. " Ah, my 
lady ! but you see I know her, and she knows me." 
Margaret had touched the spot. It is this perfect 
knowledge which prevents that dangerous readjust- 
ment known in friendship as " making up." 

Nor do I believe that either time or absence 



Friendship 2 1 3 

would destroy the equable friendship which exists 
between my two acquaintances. When they meet, 
though it has been six months since they saw each 
other, they will begin as Luis de Leon began his 
lecture, having been silenced by the Council for ten 
years, with, *' As we were saying yesterday, con- 
freres." '' You and she are cousins," I said one 
day to a lady of one with whom she was intimate. 
" Oh, no! not relations, just fellow servants." 



XX 

H^vtce 

MAKING confidences and giving advice are 
two of the most agreeable forms of social 
intercourse. Within the memory of persons still 
alive, it was thought becoming for all women 
to consult with a male relation upon whatever 
step they contemplated taking. There was a large, 
substantial, shadowy body, which one could best 
describe as like the vapourous hosts that used tO' 
appear above the wall of Constantinople at the 
siege of the capital, that was known in high life 
as " the Connection." When one was deprived by 
Providence of her natural protector (for so hus- 
bands and fathers in that far off time were termed), 
the Connection assumed the vacant place, and one 
or perhaps half of its representatives told her what 
to do. Widowed ladies used to travel long dis- 
tances on the cars to hear whether their Cousin 
Thomas approved of sending the boys north, or to 
a State college, to complete their education. I was 
once an eavesdropper upon such a conference, where 
the matter on the table was the propriety of a young 

214 



Advice 2 1 5 

lady's accepting an offer of marriage. It was done 
with the greatest propriety, and as only men were 
supposed to be present, no woman's name was called. 
The members oif the commission were not the girl's 
near relations, but had married into the family or 
bore the same patronymic. From the uncomfortable 
position which I occupied, kneeling on the floor and 
peeping through the keyhole, I am prevented from 
making a minute report of the proceedings, but I 
learned that there was a blot on the escutcheon of 
the suitor's great-grandmother, her papa having 
been an overseer. Whereupon an old gentleman, 
who was for the match, said that the girl herself was 
nothing in particular, and had irregular features 
and a pert manner, an offset to any sort of grand- 
mother, and, indeed, none at all. I hardly dare tell 
the rest of the story, but at this point an outraged 
lady threw open the door, rushed into the midst of 
the conference and announced that she had never in- 
tended to take their advice anyway, and that she 
should marry when she pleased and whom she 
pleased — to the admiration of her advisers, who 
liked women of spirit, and were very much afraid 
of them. The council had, however, whatever its 
result, taken place, and the decencies had been 
observed. 

With the breaking of patriarchal bonds, and the 
ignoring of any relationship further than uncles and 
aunts, " the Connection " is no longer a power. 



2 1 6 Advice 

We are not obliged to consult it, nor does there 
seem to be any code, written or unwritten, that re- 
quires a '' helpless " female, as we were once affec- 
tionately designated, to ask advice; yet advice is 
asked, and will continue to be asked, because it is 
a means of telling one's own story under the guise 
of obtaining the judgment of a wiser and better 
person. If, then, this demand for sympathy is 
called by an ingratiating title, surely no great harm 
is done. I have a friend who complains of people 
who, when she uses the innocent and unmeaning 
" How are you," not even following it with an in- 
terrogation point, take the trouble to stop and reply, 
" Very well." She says she never means them to 
reply, that she does not care how they are and that 
nobody does, that this greeting is a form of speech 
adopted by the concurrence of civilised nations, and 
that one has no right to take advantage of it. But 
Jane and I think differently. If the person to whom 
we address this — to us^ — innocuous remark, will even 
answer, " Not at all right about my head," and add 
" You have suffered with neuralgia; what did you do 
for it ? And can you recommend a tonic ? " we will 
listen respectfully and with interest. Even when it 
is put up clumsily in a liquid instead of in a neat 
capsule, we swallow this sort of flattery. The gift 
of advice is not grudgingly bestowed, even by a 
parsimonious soul. 

Now to readers who know everything I suppose 



Advice 2 1 7 

it is unnecessary to drop more than this hint, but 
the subject has its fascinations. If one really wants 
to unload upon a somewhat suspicious friend, it can 
be done with length and effusion, if the burdened 
will only preface her remarks with '' I have come 
to consult you." There is something so deferential 
in this beginning, such a confession of weakness on 
the part of the speaker, of strength on that of the 
hearer, that she will fall into the trap and listen with 
the deepest interest to what is said, following it to 
the long delayed and bitter end. And when, after 
many pros and cons, she proposes her doctor, her 
recipe, her dressmaker, if she even recounts what 
she did under circumstances that are not exactly 
similar, but under circumstances, why, the burdened 
one has only to look relieved and very, very thought- 
ful. It is not necessary to take advice, but it is 
always safe to ask it; and then, if you do not take 
it, ten to one that you won't be found out. People 
do not insist upon obedience, they only want that 
feeling of '' having been of use." 

Jane and I have not reached these cynical con- 
clusions through the experiences of others. Soon 
after we moved into our neighbourhood a lady came 
running over without her hat, and in a great state 
of excitement. " You don't know me," she said, 
with the most charming and, it must be said, help- 
less little laugh, *' but I know you. I have come 
over in the greatest distress. I am having some 



2 1 8 Advice 

people to dinner, and I do not know how to make 
the salad/* We were sitting in front of the fire, 
and occupied — ^Jane with her crochet and I reading" 
a novel oif the passe Thackeray — and I should have 
said the moment before that we did not want to be 
disturbed. But somehow both were on our feet in 
a twinkling. Jane had run up to the third floor, 
and was searching in a precious manuscript book 
whose axioms were never disclosed to our best and 
dearest, we having inherited it from an unparalleled 
housewife of the old school. I had a harder task. 
I looked into my mind and tried to remember rules 
for salad, and was at least in the neighbourhood of 
success, for I brought out a plantation remedy for 
acute dyspepsia and local gout. She kept us for 
half an hour, and during that time managed to slip 
in a long anecdote about a cousin of hers who lives 
in Kansas City, and had experienced religion under 
a wandering fakir. When she left, Jane went with 
her to the door, and I heard this somewhat difficult 
person say : *' Come over any time when we can 

help you, and be sure to boil " The rest was 

about an elaborate dressing that is excellent if kept 
three weeks. 

Returning to the drawing-room, Jane looked im- 
portant. *' I hope when she makes my salad " 

*' Your salad," interrupted Janet's mamma. " You 
don't suppose she is going tO' make your salad ; why 
it calls for " Never mind what it calls for; this 



Advice 219 

volume is not " The Perfect Housewife's Guide." 
That is another book, and, besides, it was not Jane's 
recipe I wanted to discuss, but my own. We two 
sisters, who had Hved together in unity many years, 
sat opposite each other, faces inflamed, voices 
broken. We had permitted a stranger to set us by 
the ears about a rule for preparing a bit of lettuce. 

Again the door-bell, and we had not time to re- 
adjust our features. Our cousin Belinda, who has 
long lived here, came in, and there was something 
in our attitude that did not displease her. " I saw 

Mrs. D coming out of your door just now. Did 

she run in to ask how to cut her Jimmy's hair, or 
to make bread? That's a way she has of scraping 
acquaintance." And then Belinda gave us to under- 
stand that Mrs. D combined in her own person 

the information of a professional cook and a barber. 
Still, though for the moment, we were abashed, I, 

myself, have always liked Mrs. D . At least she 

thought it worth while to seem to wish our advice. 

The habit of asking advice, an observant person 
will discover, then, accounts for the popularity of a 
good many people. We long puzzled over the 
social attraction an acquaintance of ours had for 
persons whom both Jane and I have found it hard to 
please. She is a determined sort of woman-execu- 
tive, fond of her own way, which qualities militate 
against what we call charm. But she rides on the 
front seat of many a boxing-party, and is asked to 



220 Advice 

wedding breakfasts. By accident we found out 
that she takes no step without going to well-placed 
friends and saying, " Now what do you think about 
it? This is what I think, but I can't be happy with- 
out your approval." Now to make another unhappy 
is a responsibility, and the deferential insinuation is 
that she-^it is sometimes he, the advised — has it in 
his power to take away so precious a thing by a word 
or a frown. It cannot be done; even if the judg- 
ment is a little against it, what matter, even you 
and I are not infallible. In fact, you and I give the 
suppliant our blessing, generally our approval. 
*' She is a very sensible woman," we say; " she takes 
advice," which is not quite true, but true enough. 

From a '' wealthy past," as the poet calls it, Jane 
and I have culled the information that, on the whole, 
it is best always to agree with the adviser. Some- 
times a conscientious scruple may disturb the coun- 
selled, when her sewing woman asks approval upon 
the purchase of a pianola, or a very timid, delicate, 
hard-worked school-teacher proposes to marry one 
whose habits are confirmed in inebriety; or when a 
friend wishes our blessing upon a toy pistol, which 
she finds her only son cannot live without. But 
even under these circumstances, conscience can be 
chloroformed with a safe " One cannot discount 
sentiment," '' One's own intuitions are worth a good 
deal," and " There are two sides to every question." 
Then, if the plan turns out badly, you have not com- 



Advice 221 

mitted yourself; if well, there is an opportunity to 
look modest, and mention that you had been con- 
sulted. 

Now Janet's mamma feels particularly empowered 
to talk about giving advice, because not once only, 
but twice, in a period of youth and enthusiasm, she 
advised people to marry without the consent of 
their parents. Both were dressmakers, and while 
sewing " the long white seam," two different per- 
sons at two different times confided their anxieties 
to a flattered sympathiser. To say that not once, 
but twice, this lady assisted those of her sex to de- 
scend ladders and escape paternal vigilance by night 
is to run the risk of losing your good opinion; but 
so it happened. At the end of two months both the 
counselled came back demanding divorces and 
needlework, and there was nothing for it but law- 
yers and a supply of extra clothing. And if her 
acquaintances were contemptuous of the appearance 
of Janet's mamma for the next few years, this, too, 
had to be endured. Counsel in these instances, not 
being wrapped up in "I am sure that sounds well, 
but you had best look deeply into it," or " With your 
opportunities you are prepared to judge," had to be 
followed by support, and she who had been prodigal 
of advice wore crooked seams and wrinkled backs 
until her victims were relieved by the law. 

And there are other reasons beside self-preserva- 
tion which should make us chary of giving counsel. 



222 Advice 

In Mrs. Oliphant's " Margaret Maitland " the old 
servant Deborah says : '' What you think the right 
way most times turns out to be the wrong way, and 
when you make folks turn to the right when they 
are minded to turn to the left, it's most likely the 
left would have been the best way for them to travel 
after all. It's a queer tract of country here below, 
and everyone has to take his own chance in the long 
run." Those two angry, ^' I hope you are satisfied 
now " faces which confronted Janet's mamma, after 
they had followed her womanly advice, " All is well 
lost for love," and found that she spoke the literal 
truth, those two faces have emphasised Deborah's 
philosophy. 



XXI 

XTbe Hpolo^i? an^ tbe XKHoman wbo Stoo^ 
Between 

THEORETICALLY the apology is the only 
way to correct ar wrong. A recantation is 
supposed to possess great ethical value, and it is 
the opportunity of the offended. In a book of re- 
ligious intention (but the work, I think, of a rather 
economically inclined nature, and one who in a pre- 
vious stage of existence had the job of marking down 
goods for the dull season's bargain counters), I read 
recently that one should not miss this great occasion 
for exercising a virtue. It reminded us that oppor- 
tunities to do good works are rare; to do a good 
action for which we are not at once rewarded, rarer 
— and this is a practice which cuts off emolument at 
the other end. Charity meets with loud-mouthed 
applause; piety is respected; and yet, in both these 
popular ways, people try to balance accounts which 
are certainly not going to be paid twice over. 

But an apology is a different matter. He who 
accepts one need have no quibbles about publishing 
the fact and losing the reward of those who do good 
in secret. For the sake of the offender, all must be 

223 



224 The Apology and the Woman 

told. '' She has confessed her fault," we say, '' and 
we have forgiven her." And then we meet with a 
certain recompense. To be sure, the reward is like 
the position of Prince Albert in relation to the 
throne, — it is good, but not so good. Our part in 
the duet will be a part, but it will be the alto. Almost 
anybody to whom the interview is related will say: 
'' Confessed, has she ? How beautiful ! how noble 
of her ! " And then our time will come. '' And it 
was nice of you, too, to excuse her." 

Of course different people have different ideas of 
the value of their own goods, but this book which 
we have been reading is of opinion that it is well 
worth being injured and seeing the injurer flooded 
with sympathy and admiration, that we may have 
the satisfaction of hearing '' You, too, deserve 
credit." But a conceited person would not probably 
consider that somewhat inferior compliment full 
compensation for defamation of character. 

Now, circumstances in our lives have led Jane and 
me to think that people are kept from doing a good 
many agreeable things by a bugbear called '' the day 
of reckoning." More than once I have choked and 
sputtered and come in danger of strangulation rather 
than relate an interesting anecdote about a person 
who-, I knew, had methods of self-defence and would 
require me to recant, did my anecdote reach her. The 
truth is, we had a silly horror of apologising; we 
pictured a quivering of limb, a frog in th^ throat. 



The Apology and the Woman 225 

a sense of humiliation before it came out — " I am 
sorry." But the time arrived when we changed all 
that. Once a lady accused the most blameless of 
human beings of supplying her own table from the 
Soup Kitchen, of which she was a manager, and also 
of voting twice at an election where her most inti- 
mate friend was a candidate for president. 

Though innocent of at least one of these charges, 
the defendant in this case had to be goaded on by 
friends to demand satisfaction and a withdrawal of 
the slander. I say slander, not slanders. And they 
held out an enticing opportunity to exercise that 
magnanimity which her friends felt lay deep hidden 
under a somewhat volatile exterior. '' How beauti- 
ful it will be, how beautiful you will be, if you can 
really and truly forgive her." And though the in- 
jured one had a distaste for seeing a fellow being 
grovelling at her feet, the prospect of pulchritude, 
even moral pulchritude, had its effect. " Well, if 
she is really and truly penitent, I will forgive her." 
But she had her bad moments. — the lady — she knew 
that she would be ashamed, embarrassed. It must 
be so hard for her enemy to recant, to humble her- 
self, and she made a plan. She wrote a little note 
that she had all ready to slip into the apologist's 
hand, and these were the words inscribed therein: 
" Deny it. Under the circumstances a falsehood 
will be accepted as an apology." But I little knew 
my own special penitent, She had come, filled up 



226 The Apology and the Woman 

to the brim with contrition — well, was it contrition ? 
You shall form your own opinion. 

'' Yes, she had said it, but she had heard it so gen- 
erally in society from the best friends of her whom 
she had offended, that she had taken for granted 
that what everyone said and believed was true. In 
fact the gossip upon the subject had been so notori- 
ous that she had broken a life-long habit of reti- 
cence, and repeated what she had heard." 

The opportunity to be generous had by this time 
become so wide that I felt that it must water the 
entire list of my acquaintances. *' Pray, say no 
more about it," came to the injured one's lips. 
" But / must say it," insisted the penitent, " I must 
make any sacrifice to put things on their proper 
footing between us. About that voting business I 

was told " A naked bough, shaking in the wind, 

could not have been more helpless than Janet's 
mamma. When a person is really sorry there is no 
depth of humiliation that somebody must not reach. 
The story of the election was told — it was told with 
detail and clearness — and when it was over, she 
who addresses you found herself explaining that, 
though she had carefully avoided the temptation to 
cry " Aye " more than once, she had cried so loud 
that the echo had probably produced the impression 
oif another vote. I need not add that no occasion 
presented itself when I had cause to use the artifice 
O'f the note. The apologist had come bent on telling 



The Apology and the Woman 227 

the unvarnished truth; and frankly, in future, when 
I feel myself in need of a scourge, I shall invite 
defamation and let the defamer apologise to me. 

And then, there is an additional opportunity for 
the contrite. It gives one who is self-centred an 
opportunity to talk about herself. I have a friend, 
a charming woman, who is a trifle impatient of long- 
winded stories of other people's adventures. She 
says that they give her a mysterious disease she calls 
" the budge." But it chanced that there came to her 
ears a remark of an acquaintance who said that she 
had not paid her dressmaker, and that lady de- 
manded that the slander be refuted, since it reflected 
on her business capacity and an inexorable law — 
" no bills." 

The apologist came, sniffled; my friend waved 
her hand as if the past were a blackboard and she a 
teacher, effacing it with a wet sponge. Sniffling 
was succeeded by hysterics. My friend became a 
remedial agent and assumed the duties, though not 
the salary, of a trained nurse. No good. The pa- 
tient pushed away the chloroform bottle, and re- 
quired to be comforted, soothed. I was not there 
myself, but I infer that she required rocking before 
she would consent to the slightest symptoms of 
rally. Now Mahala Green, for it was she, is not ac- 
customed to rock even herself, so I have sometimes 
permitted myself to smile when I pictured her per- 
forming this maternal office for a perfect stranger 



228 The Apology and the Woman 

who had injured her reputation. At last she recol- 
lected a magic phrase for which she is indebted to 
Janet's mamma — the coaxing, ^' Now don't cry. 
Sit up and tell me all about it." Mahala Green is 
a poor listener, but, on this occasion, I am told that 
she varied absorbed attention with applying sal- 
volatile for two mortal hours, while the apologist 
related the circumstances under which her last cook 
left her, and what she broke when they moved to 
Baltimore from Elicott City. When she arose she 
smiled a watery smile and said she felt better. But 
I do not myself see that Mahala Green's chance for 
'' feeling better " was improved. '' The next time," 
Mahala said — not without bitterness — '' it will be / 
who will say that she did not pay her dressmaker." 
Now for '' The Woman who Stands Between." 
Just now I opened a book, and between its leaves I 
saw a pressed violet. Both pages of the book were 
slightly stained, but the violet was utterly crushed 
out of semblance to itself. Then I recollected that 
for no sentimental reason had I placed the flower 
there, but to keep the pages apart. Its dilapidated 
condition at once suggested the appearance of in- 
dividuals who serve a similar purpose, and she rose 
before me — the woman who stood between — in all 
her vivid, yet self-effacing, personality. Now the 
phrase — the woman who stood between — does not 
usually convey the impression of a crushed violet. 
I did not myself read the popular romance with this 



The Apology and the Woman 229 

title, but I gathered from a caustic remark of Jane's 
that in its pages she was depicted as a designing 
lady who interfered between married people. No 
such ill-intentioned person is in my mind when I 
allude to my woman. She is the individual who 
goes on errands, and is a messenger, so to speak, 
though she wears no uniform, and certainly receives 
no fees. It is she who explains things when friends, 
especially relations, fall out. She tells people what 
" is expected of them." '' What is expected of 
you ? " is an old lady in the brown silk dress and 
her hair combed over her ears, who can tell us, if 
she likes, when to go to bed; and makes us dine on 
the backs of fried chickens. She tells a brown Mag- 
gie Tulliver that she had best swap off those swarthy 
features for something blue and white, as is worn in 
the "Dodson family," for Aunt Pullet and Aunt 
Glegg both admire blond and azure, like their own 
hair and eyes. 

A not brief career had led me to wonder why, in 
a kind world, the tasks assigned the messenger are 
not more agreeable. For instance, if you will par- 
don the intrusion into your society of my Aunt 
Caroline, — a most difficult person, with whom I can- 
not presume to put you en rapport, — when I have 
offended her, and the cessation of familiar hostil- 
ities has produced the feeling of flatness, known to 
the invalid when the doctor tells her that she is 
so well that he will come no more, then I send for 



230 The Apology and the Woman 

Fanny. And I preamble my coming demand with 
something Hke this: I tell her that my Aunt Caro- 
line is my mother's sister, but she is very hard to 
get along with, and that, although I may have been 
in the wrong this time, and am very sorry, there is 
something that rises in my throat at the prospect of 
telling her so (this was before my interview with 
the penitent who accused me of duplicating my vote 
and appropriating soup tickets), and would she, 
Fanny, take the gracious office of peacemaker, 
praised in Scripture ? And I intimate that should I, 
a poor creature, fail her, she will know where to 
look for her reward. " You know, Fanny," I say, 
" I am the most awkward creature in the world, but 

you, with your good sense and your tact " 

With a comprehending look, I intimate that the 
effect of Fanny upon my Aunt Caroline will be as 
sunshine on a closed bud. 

I do not know why the attribution of a quality 
which is a combination of insincerity and time- 
serving should be received by one supposed to pos- 
sess it as the adroitest flattery, but this fact must be 
accepted like the major premise, without dispute, if 
you want to get anywhere. On Fanny it was fire on 
the tortoise's back. She is not tactful, but she is a 
kind, fussy soul, and the appeal to her piety and 
also to her finesse does the business. 

Off she trots to my Aunt Caroline, who, to tell 
the truth, has also found the lack of her niece's 



The Apology and the Woman 231 

society more conducive to quiet than to diversion. 
When she returns, covered with Httle pricks that 
give her the appearance of a smallpox patient, she 
presents to me a horrid picture of what she has come 
through. 

'' I told her that you had been hasty, but that all 
the Browns were that, and had little self-control; 
and then and there she turned on me, and asked me 
how I dared abuse her sister's child to her face, and 
did I think that she would take abuse in her own 
house, where at least she had a right to be ? ' The 
Browns, indeed! ' she said." I cannot state that in 
the interview, as related by Fanny, the imputation of 
hastiness was removed from the character of the 
Browns by the conduct of the lady who bore that 
cognomen previous to marriage. But, I must add, 
that her defence of me touched the chord of kinship, 
and that I also turned on " The Woman who Stood 
Between." 

" When I asked you to go, it was not to say dis- 
agreeable things about me, or to my aunt about her- 
self. The next time I shall do my own apolo- 
gising." 

This threat is not perhaps carried out, for Fanny 
always comes in, as we say of cold ham, but I think 
I did not deceive her when I told her that she must 
look for her reward in another world. And since 
you say that you are interested in my Aunt Caro- 
line and have always been in us, I will add that this 



232 The Apology and the Woman 

interference had the pleasing effect of bringing us 
together for the common purpose of reviling Fanny. 
The leaves of the book were faintly stained, but the 
violet was crushed. 

They tell me that in love affairs the intermediary 
is more successful. That is, the third person having, 
with the best intentions in the world, repeated 
speeches and volunteered opinions, entirely alienates 
the principal parties and catches the ball on the re- 
bound. I myself have seen a lady who told me that 
she learned to know the rich depths of her hus- 
band's heart when he was engaged to her intimate 
friend. She insinuated, of course, that these 
depths were unstirred at that time, though they be- 
came a raging torrent afterwards. It was under 
these circumstances that little Rosie soothed Clive 
Newcome. But in any case *' The Woman who 
Stood Between," though if she be taken and the 
other left, she may not care, incurs the everlasting re- 
sentment of the lady whom she served. "If you are 
under the impression that you did anything to bring 
Dick and me together after our misunderstanding, 
I can tell you now you are mistaken. He'd have 
come back anyway." To whom was this remark 
addressed? It was addressed to me, and she who 
spoke, and I, both knew that there was a time when 
Dick had been toyed on to keep his situation by a 
bribe of a week at our country house, and that while 
he was helped first at table and listened to with re- 



The Apology and the Woman 233 

spect, he was made to feel that his sentiments were 
those of one afflicted with mental alienation, and that 
he would not be considered a sane man till he did 
" come back/* 

The most pathetic figure of the " Woman who 
Stood Between " is that of Fleda Vetch in Henry 
James' '' Spoils of Poynton." You recollect that 
sihe stood between Owen and his mother, Owen and 
his intolerable betrothed, and then between Mrs. 
Gereth and Owen. And between herself and happi- 
ness there stood her conscience, which Mr. James 
has given to an English girl with all the virulence of 
his own Puritan ancestry. 

If, by any chance, the eye of The Young Person 
should fall upon this page, will she permit me to say : 
Before you interfere read the '* Spoils of Poynton," 
it will be to you a warning, this heart-breaking story 
of suffering and sacrifice, because one person pro- 
jected herself into other's lives. 

But Jane takes the task of apologist a little differ- 
ently. She has in fact her own way, when sent upon 
these missions, and I have accompanied her, in a 
subordinate capacity. Now, this is Jane's way : " I 
hear that you say that Mrs. M is a very preten- 
tious, wasteful, extravagant person, that she has set 
the march of the neighbourhood to a different time, 
and that no one can keep up with her; that she has 
been heard to say that only men servants are proper 
downstairs, and that decent people dine at half-past 



234 The Apology and the Woman 

eight. Now I am her friend and I want to do her 
justice, so I have come to tell you that that's all non- 
sense. She dines at seven, like the rest of us, and her 
hats do not come from Louise's. She is a hard- 
working, saving woman, and those bragging 
speeches of hers were all talk." 

Of course, you. may like such an apologist, but I, 
for myself, do not know. I have an idea that, if 
I had told little fibs like these, and wanted to be 
thought richer and more modish than I was, I would 
not care for Jane's '* setting me right " by describing 
my real character. 

Again, on another occasion, when Jane had been 
sent to an awe-inspiring individual, in behalf of a 
clinging creature who had offended her, she said: 
" I come to say to you that Mary Eliza is very sorry 
that she has made you angry. And you should not 
be, for at times the child is not quite responsible. 

She suffers from nervousness, and her head " 

Jane puts her hand to her own forehead and makes 
a revealing gesture. Here, too, it is a matter of 
opinion, but somehow I can better bear the displeas- 
ure of one whose friendship, after all, is not neces- 
sary to my existence, than that allusion to my 
faculties which wipes out all responsibility. In fact, 
Jane was so pleased with the thorough success of her 
mission, the offended one being perfectly willing to 
pardon a deranged person, that I find her repeating 



The Apology and the Woman 235 

the terms of her apology, and even when she herself 
has had a tiff with a friend, I hear her say com- 
placently : " I dare say that, when she did it, she was 
a little off." Shall we, then, do our own apologis- 
ing? I think '' 3;^^/' 



XXII 

Ottevances 

THE reflections I am going to submit to you 
are founded on the memory of this remark 
of an acquaintance who^ but lately said to me, 
wiping her little periwinkles of eyes, *' I am com- 
paratively happy now, but when I think of all I 
have gone through, I could sit down and have a real 
good cry." Nor in my heart do I believe she would 
think it either exactly womanly or respectable to put 
her past behind her. A grievance, if it is a past 
grievance, gives dignity to the most prosaically com- 
fortable present, while a present grievance is not 
without its palliations. 

People with grievances, for one thing, have " to 
be braced." One friend has to take the part of 
valerian, one of quinine, one of St. Jacob's oil. And, 
although I tell myself that I will not go again to 
console with So and So' because she sprained her 
ankle last spring, and never leave her without quot- 
ing that the repeated assertion of an insignificant 
fact tends to weaken and* destroy the mind, go I do. 
with faithful pertinacity, and perhaps a bit of 

236 



Grievances 237 

charlotte-russe, although I know that if it were not 
the sprained ankle, it would be the twisted knee, or 
the hurt feelings, and that what she needs is not 
medicine, but wholesome neglect. 

Another acquaintance is always in the deepest 
gloom from the anticipated departure of her cook. 
In vain she is told that her cook has discovered 
this somewhat transparent presagement of evil, and 
works upon her after the manner of the potter with 
his clay. Hers is a pleasant house — all the more 
pleasant for the presence of the passing Sally, whom 
even visitors look upon as poised in aerial flight; 
but its cheer is tempered by the reflection, after the 
most succulent mouthful : " Ah, well may you en- 
joy it now ! For Sally, as I do not believe I men- 
tioned it to you, will probably leave me next month." 

And Jane and I have still another friend to whom 
the weather is a source of misery. It is pitiable to 
see her when it is cold, and one goes equipped with 
Melville's '' Expeditions," or Nansen's " Voyages " 
to prove from the printed page that people have been 
colder. But I have found that those with grievances 
rather resent the idea that others have suffered 
greater miseries, and prefer to think of themselves 
like Niobe or CEdipus. 

Other females count it as a virtue that the tem- 
perature, wherever it is, is apt to be " enervating." 
A lady of the highest social position, to whom I now 
pay duty, tells me that her constant condition is that 



238 Grievances 

of being " unnerved by the airlessness," and though 
the wind be blowing a nor' wester, this sensitive 
spirit discovers in it a '* lack of life." Her husband 
has the look of an unwilling express messenger, for 
they pass their lives looking for a stimulating cli- 
mate, and it is really miraculous when you come to 
think of the vapour baths, the furnaces, the kilns 
and cauldrons, the deserts, the steaming, they go 
through unscathed. 

But I think that the most fashionable grievances 
are those which result from the effort to live in mag- 
nificence, and at the same time practise small econ- 
omies. I know people who cling like a burr to the 
mere thought of a carriage and pair, and who speak 
of a husband who does not give his wife jewelry as 
having a mean nature, whose wails when the butter 
is out reach the next-door neighbour. Of course the 
feelings toward butter, of the cook of one who wears 
diamonds and drives in her coach, must be different 
from those of the domestic of her who walks, or 
takes a cab to save her best gown. Therefore it is 
to be expected that there will be prodigality in the 
first instance, where there will be a disposition to 
scrimp in the last. 

But my friend, who has the conveyance and a 
strict eye for the way the butter goes, makes no such 
distinction. " There is no reason why, because 
Providence has blessed me with worldly goods (I 
am very fond oi Mary — but I wish she would not 



Grievances 239 

speak of herself as selected by her Maker as a special 
pet and favourite, while others are understood to be 
obnoxious to Him) I should be the prey of every 
passerby, and I expect my groceries to go as far as 
if I had your income." And for want of an illus- 
tration Mary takes the nearest. 

I think dear Mary Smith in '* Cranford " loved to 
hoard string, and Mr. Gladstone wrote on backs of 
other people's letters to save paper; but these are not 
exactly economies, they are distinctions. The 
people this paper is holding up for reprobation are 
those who make a virtue of small worries, and give 
neither themselves nor others peace. '' My lord," 
said Juliana in Mr. Pinero's play; ''she bored me 
till I felt my scalp quivering. Do you know the feel- 
ing? " And my lord said '' Yes." 

And there are people with '' feelings " which they 
describe as " my sensitive nature," who, when one 
has inquired whether they will have peas at dinner 
refuse, and afterward greet us with a stonewall 
offended-governess face. 

This appearance, strange to say, seldom affects 
members of one's own sex who do not often enter- 
tain sentimental feelings toward each other, but ren- 
ers genuinely unhappy husbands and sons who, al- 
though they cannot imagine why one should sulk 
over an unintentional slight, are always ready to 
believe their womenkind threatened with mysterious 
and hopeless diseases. An explanation is therefore 



240 



Grievances 



at once, and with the utmost humiUty, demanded 
and " Let me go for the doctor," urged in a beseech- 
ing manner, to be met with the reply : " It is not my 
health, it is my heart that is hurt. You never 
noticed that I had a headache." 

I used to know a person who always alluded to 
this ailment as *' one of my headaches," exactly as 
if it were a personal mark of distinction — a token of 
aristocratic lineage, or the power to write a sonnet. 
And yet it was none the less a grievance, and an ex- 
cuse for not visiting old and refractory relations, or 
making sponge cake when " it was expected," of one 
for fairs and church festivals. Another acquaint- 
ance harboured a resentment against fate that her 
front hair did not curl naturally, and was wont to 
ascribe the social mortifications of her life to the ob- 
duracy of her locks. Still another regarded herself 
as set apart among the accursed because her sister- 
in-law's porch had a southern exposure, while she 
endured a blighting northern wind. In vain one 
assured her that the sister-in-law's children were too 
stupid to know north from south, while hers spoke 
the foreign tongues from infancy; still the grievance 
remained. 

And another friend heartily dislikes her next-door 
neighbour, and though longing to be quit of it, re- 
fuses to sell her a piece of property, because the 
neighbour wears bonnets too young for her. She 
tells me it is not the bonnets themselves that irritate. 



Grievances 24 1 

but the disposition of a woman of that age to get 
herself up in such a rig. '' Why, my dear," she ex- 
claims with tears in her voice, '' why, even I, twenty 
years younger, never wear violets, as much as dear 
George would have hated to have me look a frump." 
And though we insist that it is in strict accordance 
with the departed Admiral's wishes that the neigh- 
bour wears a curled front and lisse strings, as long 
as they both live, my acquaintance will cherish a 
grievance against the relict of her superior in rank. 

Of course, people have little undefined grievances 
against others, which they would be ashamed to ad- 
mit. Philip's Charlotte objected tO' the Little Sister, 
because she kept them all comfortable on their tiny 
income; and Laura disliked Pen's pen, his sole sup^ 
port. Those are natural enough. But for myself, I 
consider that of all who have grievances, the hardest 
to get along with are those who superintend the af- 
flictions of others, and make it their business to do 
honour to " the departed " — other people's departed, 
as well as their own. 

I have acquaintances whose object in life is to 
see that '' proper respect " is shown by external ob- 
servances. A soldier's widow violently reproached 
her man's colonel, because there was a dearth of 
plumes. " I had so hoped for plumes," she moaned. 
And she is not alone in her wail. There are people 
who mourn in cut jet spangles that make a jingle 
up the aisle, while there are those who manage to see 



242 Grievances 

the doings of a frivolous world under two crepe 
veils. The latter have the air of going off at any 
moment, but they generally stay to see that others 
do '' what is to be expected." 

I wonder if it would do to repeat to persons with 
perpetual grievances the Scotch aphorism: "Grav- 
ity is a mysterious carriage of the body, invented to 
cover the defects of the soul." I wonder, but I do 
not dare. 



XXIII 

1bapptne65 

JANE says that one of these days, when she gets 
time, she is going to write an article on " The 
Things People are Proud of." Jane considers her- 
self by way of being an authoress, because she is 
on the mortuary committee of the Colonial Dames, 
and, but lately, I heard her encourage the fainting 
heart of an aspirant for literary honours by the 
statement : '' Why, there's nothing difficult about 
it. I've printed." She says that in the forth- 
coming treatise she is going to call the public's 
attention to a queer fact. We acknowledge with- 
out a blush that we are handsome, intelligent, 
rich — qualities that are only valuable as promo- 
ters of happiness; but to own that we have 
attained to the state is to own to a certain lack of 
sentiment — to a callousness and want of feeling. To 
have forgotten one's sufferings is to have resigned a 
claim to that deep and ardent nature that each of 
us — in her heart — would be thought to possess. A 
secret sorrow, hidden under a gay and brilliant ex- 

243 



244 Happiness 

terior, is a possession of the highest social impor- 
tance. The happiness of society, says the philoso^ 
pher, is based upon the pains of private and domestic 
experience, and so valuable is a past with its accom- 
panying bitterness, that people are more pleased to be 
suspected of having one, than of being caught visit- 
ing the poor or saying their prayers. 

In proof of this theory, Jane tells me that, for fun, 
she once laid a detaining hand on the arm of a 
healthy, portly, cheerful creature, proud of his wife, 
his children, and his income, and looking into his 
eyes murmured : '* I know that to the world you 
appear happy. You laugh, you jest, you are witty 
and sarcastic; but I, an astute observer of human 
nature, I know that beneath that joyous exterior 
lurks a hidden, secret grief which you bravely cover. 
It may comfort you to think that one person in all 
the world knows you as you are, and respects the 
reticence of a strong nature." 

And Jane says that instantly a surprised, but fatu- 
ous smile overspread his features. He pulled down 
his cuffs, and turned away. That stroke about reti- 
cence sealed his lips, but the sigh that issued from 
his voluminous shirt front would have sent off a 
man-of-war, and it said as plain as words could say : 
" I am indeed a much misunderstood man." 

Nor is this device for making one's self popular 
apt to fail with women, who, Mallock says, should 
always have had a grief, but never a grievance, and 



Happiness 245 

to be mistress of a sorrow, but never its servant. 
Stoutness, though it has not that outward appear- 
ance, has a tendency to produce an overflow of 
sentiment, and after forty, the woman is exceptional 
who is not wilHng to be credited with a past. I have 
seen very comfortable matrons, whose eyes took a 
far-away, dreamy gaze when Jane experimented 
with them by reading '' Allan Percy's Son," or 
*' Changes " aloud, and who looked stabbed did some- 
one darkly hint at a wild cousin, who had gone away 
desperate, years and years ago, and had never been 
heard of more. 

But the real truth known about unhappiness — I 
speak of unhappiness caused by restricted means, 
failure of recognition, disappointment in friendship 
or affection — -that deeper anguish caused by the loss 
of those we love, I do not of course touch on — I 
think that the sentimentalist would come back from 
his investigations disappointed. 

It is true that very young people suffer acutely; 
youth is tragedy's hour, and at times we have been 
very unhappy ; at times we thought we were so, at 
times we wanted others to think we were so. But, 
difficult as is life by moments, it is not difficult by 
years. In a definite space sorrows grow dim, and 
pale, and we look about us in a sort of bewildered, 
half-angry surprise that such a dreadful thing has 
happened to us, that we have lived through it, and are 
indeed quite comfortable, and that though we may 



246 Happiness 

have nothing particular or definite to make us so, 
we are. as happy as most people. 

Is this insensibility? I think not. It is simply 
a proof that happiness is pretty evenly distributed. 
For the struggle of living itself makes a sort of 
pleasurable excitement, and from past sorrows we 
extract a certain tender melancholy. 

Jane used to have a lugubrious dressmaker whom 
she humoured, in the vain hope that, if she petted her, 
she would cut her back seams straight. When she 
wished to be particularly ingratiating, she repeated 
Longfellow's " The Day is Done and the Darkness," 
and let '' Miss Beck" dwell on a secret grief which 
even now ate into her soul, which was that her 
parents were Methodists and prevented her from 
taking dancing lessons when she was young. For 
my part, I do not believe that any amount of dancing 
would have given the pure joy that Miss Beck has 
extracted from these symposiums with Jane, when 
she has been at liberty to vent her sorrows. 

Other friends of ours take comfort in regretting 
broken crockery, gowns ruined in rainstorms, lost 
pieces of jewelry. My Aunt Caroline once lost a 
gold breastpin, a battered, worn article which — what- 
ever its value through association, a mysterious 
acquired quality, but one which does not add to its 
intrinsic worth — did not bear '' salable" upon its 
thin features. But during its absence it suffered a 
sea change — it attained the qualities of the Kohinoor. 



Happiness 247 

My aunt compared it with our poor little things, — to 
their detriment, — and even intimated that it had been 
her intention to will it to Jane, as a return for having 
nursed her through an attack of sciatica. 

One day John found the breastpin, and, simple 
soul, was about to return it to its stricken owner, 
had we not snatched it from his pleased, outstretched 
hand. Had he brought it back, a battered gold pin, 
and nothing more, our Aunt Caroline would have 
been justly offended, and our chance of inheriting 
a silver teapot, long promised, often retracted, would 
have gone forever. 

" What makes you cry, Joe? " I asked a little boy. 
** I cry because I am miserbul." '' But what makes 
you miserable? " '' I loves to be miserbul." 

Now the causes of unhappiness are sometimes ob- 
scure. People who get the most pity in the world 
are not the chief sufferers, and when it is bestowed, 
it is not always on the most pressing cause for 
sorrow. Our bitterest tears, our moments of 
sharpest pain, are given to complaints that have too 
much bare-faced self-love in them to be presented to 
our critical fellow-beings, or even to be recognised 
nakedly, before the bar of our own consciences. But 
though I believe in putting a brave front upon even 
serious troubles, I do not think that we ought to be 
afflicted with the necessity of seeming exuberantly 
cheerful. To be sure, poets have sung of the cheerful 
countenance; millionaires have married it. Who 



248 Happiness 

does not welcome it when it leaps into the dining- 
room on a clear, sharp morning, when the normal 
breakf aster is huddled over the fire ? It is like a cold 
hand thrust playfully down the collar. It is as 
inspiring as a quinine pill or a dose of calisaya bark. 
Who does not lift up the aching head, and carry it 
out of the room and hide it behind locked doors 
under a mass of pillows, when that compelling chirp 
calls '' Cheer up ! " " Are not the little birds sing- 
ing, ' All's Well in the World ' ? it asks in its thought- 
ful, arresting way. If I have not had my morning 
coffee, I can no more meet the cheerful countenance 
than a guilty conscience can meet its accuser. 

The other day we were sitting by a low little fire 
in the parlour of an old country house — three old 
friends — who, such was our companionship, had 
no need of speech to hold communion. The tender 
light of the fading day cast long shadows on the 
hills; the little old-fashioned garden under the win- 
dows glowed in the sunset and turned wistful, flower- 
faces to its lingering caresses. It was peaceful, it 
was calm, it was well. 

Suddenly the door flew open and the cheerful 
countenance projected itself into our midst. 
" What," the clear, clarion notes rung out, " what 
are you doing here hugging this wretched little 
blaze, when all the world outside is a glow of glory ? 
No wonder you look dull. Come out! Come out 
with me into this fresh, bracing air! And you are 



Happiness 249 

not even talking! Is it possible you haven't been 

introduced ? Dear me ! Mrs. M , let me present 

Mr. G , and you, Miss B , surely you have 

heard of Mrs. ? I thought nice people like you 

always knew each other ! " The witching smile, the 
darting glance, how at home it made us all feel! 
And, on the strength of it, we all got up and bowed 
gravely to each other, the three old, old friends, who 
for so long had made the journey together, up hill 
and down. And all the windows flew open, and 
the doors sprang wide, and the little low fire, for 
very shame, died on the hearth, and the shivery blast 
rushed in. I defy microbes or mystery or melan- 
choly to exist where beams the cheerful counte- 
nance. 

And yet, I would not be frank if I did not warn 
you that she of the cheerful countenance is not with- 
out her own difficult moments. A cheerful person 
gets, after a while, a reputation which compels her 
to carry her cheerfulness into her own life. Not 
only has she to be " bright " about your headache 
and mine. She has to be '' bright " about her own 
headache. But lately, Jane and I called at a house 
of mourning. It was a dreadful tragedy, and we 
went with sympathy and tears. But the one upon 
whom the grief had fallen was a " cheerful " person. 
There are a good many ways of making a fellow- 
being feel like one devoid of intellect, but I do not 
know a more reliable way than that of meeting the 



250 Happiness 

friend who has come to condole with us with " Isn't 
it beautiful? Just as we would have had it, could 
we have chosen. Oh, yes ! we are very happy about 
it and wouldn't have it different for the world." 
Unless one has experienced this sort of thing, a 
criticism of the extended hand and sparkling eye 
seems hypercritical. But the fact is that such a re- 
ception leaves the sympathiser very little to say. 
To agree with the assertion that " It is beautiful 
and better so " is certainly uncomplimentary. To 
drag the mourner back to earth is brutal. I said 
that such a reception makes one look like an imbe- 
cile, and I repeat it; and could the features be mir- 
rored when they become devoid of intellect, their 
appearance would not tend to the increase of self- 
respect. 

But Jane, who once, for a short time, adopted the 
cheerful countenance in an amateurish sort of way, 
tells me that it is not when one is in this kind of dis- 
tress that one finds it most difficult to maintain 
cheerfulness, but when one is about to undergo a 
surgical operation. As no true soul at this period 
of the world's history would be willing to go through 
life without offering up some portion of her anatomy 
to the cause of science, one of the cheerful counte- 
nance must not only expect this experience, but, 
while enduring it, her gaiety must shine with efful- 
gence. Doctors who, unlike their sex at large, are 
not without perception, having noticed this fact, 



Happiness 251 

take advantage of it, with the result that, if the 
patient is not verging on hilarity when placed on 
the operating table, they profess to be unnerved. 
" There was a time," wailed poor Jane, " when one's 
one solace, when one was being cut up and dissected 
alive, was that one could be miserable about it. 
Then, at least, we could drink our fill of pity. 
People wept over us, ministers of the gospel read the 
Scriptures over us, friends brought the consoling 
jelly in little cut-glass bowls, even cynics said ' Let 
her cry, poor thing, it will do her good.' " But the 
cheerful countenance has changed all that, and its 
attitude has filtered down into the laity until, if one 
if to be deprived of a vital organ, the most natural 
thing in the world to say of her is^ — '' She is, of 
course, the most cheerful person in the house." And 
if there is a. moment when the flesh falters, up comes 
the trained nurse in stiff uniform and professional 
authority. " Really, you must keep up! " she says. 
" Think of the doctors — you must help them, don't 
think of yourself — that's morbid; think of me.*' 
Animated, then, by this inspiring topic — thoughts 
of the trained nurse — the poor creature goes to her 
doom, flags flying, arms waving, shouting encour- 
agement to her medical staff, and calling " Be 
brave " to the operator. " I assure you," said 

Jane, " that the night before poor little Sally N 

was operated on for appendicitis they brought in 
a man six feet tall and three feet wide who was to 



252 Happiness 

have his finger straightened, and asked her to 
' hearten him up/ But then you see Sally had un- 
wisely adopted the cult of looking cheerful under all 
circumstances." 

Another reason why people are unhappy is that 
they have no realisation of the fact that to-day is 
the best of all days, and for us, maybe, the only 
day — and that happiness — to be stable — must be in 
the present. There was once a lady who could 
never make up her mind to eat a sound apple. She 
had that sense of the importance of to-morrow that 
led her to resist any pleasure that to-day might bring 
forth. So all the year round she munched the fruit 
which wrought our ruin, not in its pristine, tempt- 
ing state, but with decayed bits in it. Nor need you 
mock at this unfortunate female, reader. Who, if 
not you, are promising yourself that when you are 
old and bedridden, you will go to the theatre every 
night, or when you have lost your complexion and 
your curls, you will have your bonnets from Pan- 
gat? That friend who, I am always telling you, 
has a paramount influence over our lives, has a 
secret industry in which she engages and which oc- 
cupies her when we want her to take a walk in the 
autumn woods or sit out a lonesome twilight. For 
my part, I think it is writing lurid tales for the news- 
papers, of which she is properly ashamed, but Jane 
suspects her of discovering manuscripts that rehabil- 
itate the character of Alexander VI. At any rate, 



Happiness 253 

she spends all her superfluous time and energy on 
its accomplishment. And why? Because there is 
an unfurnished room in her compact little establish- 
ment. And her benefits, which she would otherwise 
dispense in royal fashion, are squandered that, in 
some future day, she may open the door and say 
" Behold." 

And I have another friend who eats her frugal 
dinner with pewter forks, eats it with martyr-like 
patience, because some day she will save enough to 
have silver ones. In vain has Janet's mamma prof- 
fered plate, many a time expatiating on its decency. 
But a pis aller is despicable. With pewter she will 
eat or not at all, for there is no middle way for so 
valiant a soul. I do not, from motives of delicacy, 
like to tell her that another younger, fairer woman 
will probably enjoy the silver forks, when she has 
gone where forks are a superfluity, but I think it, 
all the same. 

In fact my friend is one who makes a virtue of 
makeshifts and says that youth is the time that feeds 
upon itself and needs no extraneous aids to enjoy- 
ment. This is, of course, good philosophy if it is good 
sense. But that their cup is full is not the reason 
why people defer happiness. They defer it for several 
reasons, one being a subtle instinct to put off a keen 
enjoyment, as a child saves a bit of cake to " eat 
presently," a deferred pleasure being to the average 
intelligence an added pleasure; and others put it off 



254 Happiness 

from the habit of depreciating the present. For the 
very reason that happiness is here, they push it 
aside. 

Now, if I had to choose between Hving in the past 
and Hving in the future, I should Hve in the future. 
I know a thin Httle lady with very red eyelids, and 
a worn crepe veil swathing her small shoulders, 
who never dwells upon the time when He used to 
tuck her under his arm for a brisk walk under the 
elms after office hours, or go with her to the 
milliner to buy a blue bonnet that exactly matched 
her dewy eyes. Her whole life is in the future, 
when her little son will leave his chair by the 
window and run out and play with other boys, when 
he will take care of her and make her again glad 
and proud of the name. You and I know that this 
cannot happen, and if she were wise, the dear thing 
would live now in his patient smile. And I know 
a little governess who, being without accomplish- 
ments or what is called '' training," must, as far 
as I can see, spend the rest of her actual life being 
a hobby-horse for small, spoiled boys to ride on. 
But she who does not even own her little white bed 
lives one day in a pink brick house with marble 
colonnades, the next in a Venetian palace, the next 
in a farmhouse deep down in sylvan shades. I 
have no quarrel with her and her ignoring of the 
'' now," or with the imagination which peoples her 
world with pleasures that reality would deny her. 



Happiness 255 

But for ordinarily constituted, ordinarily placed 
people, I would comniend the present. *' He had a 
philosophy of life," says Mr. Howells of one he 
knew and loved, *' which he liked to express with a 
vivid touch on his listener's shoulder. * Put your 
finger on the present moment and enjoy It. It's the 
only one you've got or ever will have.' " One day 
I met a person who had been very unhappy, but, to 
my surprise, the once fretful face was sweet and 
clear. ''What had she done?" ''I have bathed 
my weary soul," she said, '* in the delicious ' now,' " 
which meant that she had shut out the future and 
put the past behind her. 

Now it seems to me that if one will be natural, 
if one will not affect a false cheerfulness which one 
does not feel, if one lives in to-day, there are few 
griefs that cannot be borne. The trammels of con- 
ventionality, the dread of being misunderstood, of 
being misconstrued, which is our greatest social 
bugbear, prevent people from showing the true state 
of their feelings. But let us imagine a society in 
which it is customary for those who have reconciled 
themselves to a trouble to show their condition of 
mind — how long would we shroud ourselves in gar- 
rrients of woe and banish ourselves from our kind? 
How long hide ourselves in darkened chambers? 
Would you really like to know? Well, you can 
draw an inference from the conduct of your little 
Tommy, whom you are instructed to watch as a 



256 Happiness 

shining example. When Httle Tommy falls down 
he roars at first from the hurt, and are you standing 
by, exuding sympathy, respect, and rewards, he will 
continue to roar in the hope of the continuation of 
these emoluments. But should you leave the 
room, you will find that little Tommy will cease 
to wail and soon betake himself to his amuse- 
ments. 

If we were as miserable as conventionalities re- 
quire us to be, life would indeed be insupportable 
and we would have a right to cry out against the 
inequalities of fate; but fate is not really unequal, 
for happiness is a matter of temperament, not of 
surroundings, and to those to whom she sends many 
things, difficult to be borne, she sends internal light. 

The investigator then, having been out for un- 
happiness and brought back, after a day's hunting, 
two or three broken hearts and a bag full of 
wrinkles, the result of worry, ought to go on a cru- 
sade against that custom which requires the afflicted 
to cry out : '' Here I and sorrow bide," when sorrow 
has really moved to the next house and " I " am 
sitting up and taking a little gruel. If it were the 
custom to treat grief as we treat a cut or a bruise, 
and take the same delight in its healing, we would 
sooner adjust ourselves to the universal experiences. 
A certain one who dwells in a sort of shady bright- 
ness tells me that the secret of her peace is a low 
horizon, 



Happiness 257 

In the millennium people will be as proud of being 
happy as of having been economical, and that desira- 
ble period will be hastened a century or two, if 
we can make up our minds to appear as we really 
are. 



XXIV 

Ibow 3Beltnt)a Ibat) tbe erippe 

THE other morning, to her own astonishment, 
and that of her friends, our relation, Be- 
linda, woke up with a seizure of some kind which 
prevented her from rising, and forced her to the 
conclusion that she must have a doctor. Now 
this lady is an exceptionally healthy person. Not 
the most subservient of her flatterers could with any 
degree of propriety have ever spoken to her of her 
" highly wrought nervous organisation," or dis- 
covered in her symptoms of *' brain fag." The day 
before she had played golf and bridge; nor had her 
colour faded, nor her appetite waned up to twelve 
o'clock of the night before. 

" It is so long since I was ill that I really don't 
know what doctor to call in," she explained to her 

husband; "suppose we ask young M . He is 

just home from Europe, and, they say, is most scien- 
tific. He graduated at Columbia and then at Johns 
Hopkins, and was two years in Vienna, and a year 
in Paris. As I am sick so seldom, I had better have 
the very best advice. Besides he is young and will 

258 



How Belinda ^ad the Grippe 259 

take an interest." And while awaiting his visit, my 
friend, assisted by advisory counsel, wrote down all 
her symptoms, lest, in the excitement of her novel 
experience, one might be forgotten, and even (this 
is a veracious chronicle) was old-fashioned enough 
to hunt up a pink silk dressing sack, a little small, 
to be sure, since it was constructed for her trousseau 
fifteen years before. 

An hour later, a tall, spare, solemn young gentle- 
man, with goggles over his eyes, entered the room. 
He wore a long clerical coat, and his cuffs extended 
over his hands, which were as white as an Easter 
lily, and terminated in manicured nails. '' She was 
perfectly well yesterday. Doctor," said the hench- 
man, assuming some of the air of importance which 
attaches itself to sickness, personal or vicarious; 

*' but suddenly " If she who had addressed him 

had been a ghost, and with voiceless accents and in- 
visible presence had been endeavouring to make her- 
self heard, she could not have met with less response. 
Walking to the spot at the farthest distance from the 
couch where Belinda reposed, the six feet of ma- 
terialised mentality seated himself in a corner, 
where, had he only eyes, which Mr. Samuel Weller 
professed to be his sole way of seeing, he could not 
possibly have discerned his patient, picked up a copy 
of Jeffrey's " Story of my Heart," and began to talk 
about wild flowers. " I suppose," he said, in a voice 
from which all personality had been eliminated, so 



26b How Belinda Had the Grippe 

that one felt as if one was listening to a phonograph, 
*' you care for wild flowers, Mrs. — Brown?" 

" Well, yes," said Belinda a little doubtfully, " I 
suppose I dO', but I'm not very fond of stooping 
down now that I am rather stout, and they fade, you 
know, when they are picked. I can't think, Doctor, 

how it happened. I ate my usual " '' Oh, I did 

not think of anyone's gathering them. There is a 
grace, a naturalness, a purity in their colour, which 
I do not perceive in cultivated flowers. Theocritus, 
speaking of the blue lilies " " Perhaps, Doc- 
tor," Janet's mamma interrupted, to whom the idea 
had suddenly occurred that with his foreign educa- 
tion, he had mistaken the summons and fancied that 
he had been asked to '' assist " at a '' levee " of a 
fashionable lady, who received her friends like Ma- 
dame de Bourbon, while she submitted to her hair- 
dresser. " Perhaps you'd like to feel her pulse, or 
use the thermometer? Shall I raise the curtain?" 

Was I indeed speaking with voiceless lips? The 
horrible idea flitted across my mind that existence 
itself was a fable, and that I had no outside reality. 
Not a muscle of the set features moved, not a quiver 
of the goggled orbs intimated that he had been ad- 
dressed. Presently the long limbs unfolded, the 
spare form lifted itself; he was going toward the 
door. " But, Doctor," cried my poor friend implor- 
ingly, " I am real sick. My head aches and Vm 
sure IVe got a fever. I can't take quinine. It's a 



How Belinda Had the Grippe 261 

family peculiarity. I was Miss Carter before I was 
married — and — oh (addressing" Janet's mamma 
imploringly) — can't you keep him?" The door 
closed softly, he was gone. Shadows we are, and 
shadows we pursue, as I found when I ran after 
him. 

"Never mind," said the patient consolingly; "I 
might have known he would insult you. They al- 
ways do. They never speak to anybody but the 
trained nurse. Doctor Franck called Molly Brown's 
mother ' that woman,' and when she asked him if 
Molly was going to get well, inquired whether she 
had read ' The Bee.' But just you call Tom, and I 
will get him to find out what I am to take." 

Goaded to the task, and also endowed with a mas- 
culine theory that what you pay for you have a right 
to, Tom followed the scientist to his office. '' Your 
wife," he extracted, '' has had an attack of the pre- 
vailing grippe — been perfectly well till this morn- 
ing ? It is that which fixes me in my opinion. The 
most dangerous cases of grippe are those which do 
not manifest themselves. They have their corre- 
spondence in suppressed nerves. Had I seen her 
when she was perfectly well, I could have practiced 
my profession, which is preventive medicine. I only 
help those who are in a state of health. The malevo- 
lent forces must now struggle with the benevolent 
ones. Will she recover ? Well, really — ^the fight is 
so interesting that -" 



262 How Belinda Had the Grippe 

When people come back from doctors' offices with 
faces as red as turkey-cock combs, and using lan- 
guage that disfigure print, I, for one, cease to report 
them. 

" I shall not let another man doctor cross my 
threshold," declared Belinda, when this opinion was 
rashly unfolded to her. " Women are twice as sym- 
pathetic, and beside, I hate medicine. I will have in 
the O'Steopath." As it was, so to speak, Belinda's 
funeral, she got her way. A little, neat lady with 
brown eyes and the look of an intelligent sparrow, 
entered the sick room. " Now don't talk," she said; 
" for you will get all worked up. I know all about 
it, dear; that's the wonderful thing, the precious 
thing about having one of your very own sex to 
take care of you. We know because we have ex- 
perienced. You are like a high-bred horse, that will 
go until he drops. Oh, yes! I understand, this has 
been coming on a long time, but with your wonder- 
ful sense of duty and your will, you just wouldn't 
give up. But you were well yesterday? No, dear, 
you thought you were well. That was your splendid 
woman's courage, but you weren't; you were all 
worn out. That shaky feeling and that difficulty in 
taking a long breath. And that dread of going any- 
where alone. No? Oh, that was your power of 
resistance. You will have to give up all that and 
just sink, sink, relax. Will you be real brave about 
it and trust me when I tell you that all the sym- 



How Belinda Had the Grippe 263 

pathies on the left side of your body are tied up and 
depressed ? " 

*' If I had known that I had such dreadful thing's 
the matter with me," said my poor friend, bursting 
into tears, " I would never have had the heart tO' go 
to that card party. I'd have sent for Mary Deans 
and made her promise to marry Tom as soon as it 
was decent, so- as to have somebody he don't care 
about to take care of him and the children." 

'' Nonsense," said Janet's mamma stoutly, *' it*s 
nothing but your mind. I'm going for the mental 
scientist across the street." 

I must say that I do not approve of the moral 
effect of mental science. Belinda is a nice, sensible 
woman, with a self-respecting opinion of her own 
character; but when she got through with her phy- 
sician, her conceit had become so exaggerated that 
we all had to become Christian scientists to be able 
to stand her. The exponent of that faith told her 
that her body was a cathedral, through which the 
aortal organ was sending its rhythmical energy ; that 
it was a cosmos in miniature, an epitome of the uni- 
verse, robing the offspring of the infinite. She told 
her that she had five temple gates, opening upon 
highways that extend to the world of form, and that 
she was a superlative example of co-operation. 
When I got back, having bee^ asked to leave patient 
and physician alone together, lest I be a disturbing 
— or as they put it in their flattering way — a 



264 How Belinda Had the Grippe 

" malevolent " influence, Belinda was beating on her 
breast and calling out : " Oh, my beautiful body, 
usurped by the flesh-man! Oh, my sensitive can- 
vas upon which the healer has drawn lovely outlines, 
but which I have filled in with inharmonious 
colours ! " 

Now, it is her complexion, not her outlines, that 
is Belinda's fine point; her nose being what they 
called in the last century retrousse, and her cheek- 
bones a trifle high. So when, with the candour of 
true friendship, Janet's mamma indicated this ob- 
vious fact, and the scientist, in disgust at the pres- 
ence of the " deadly drug," poured out an expensive 
hair tonic, besides asking five dollars for her com- 
plimentary diagnosis of Belinda's " shell," she too 
was dismissed, for the headache held its own nor 
had the fever abated. 

Then Belinda, who is of an impatient disposition 
and not used to sickness, made the world her ad- 
visory counsel. By night she had given a neighbour 
an interview, who declared that there were just two 
drugs she believed in, and they had been culled from 
an English newspaper; the English were so sincere, 
rough but beautifully sincere, and these were gold 
and granite and should be taken in capsules. We 
know how useful granite is by the way poultry crave 
it — and — why, everybody wants gold — the desire is 
universal. But to a soul fed on nectar like that ad- 
ministered by the mental scientist, a panacea that 



How Belinda Had the Grippe 265 

helped chickens was rejected as insulting-, nor was 
Belinda better pleased with a remedy that was appli- 
cable to the ordinary organism. Another visitor 
gave offence by suggesting that she was a trifle 
'' hearty," so her prescription of grape juice and 
cold baths fell on deaf ears. A bowing acquaint- 
ance sent word that if glycerine tablets were substi- 
tuted for sugar she would soon be well. A hop 
pillow and a suit of sanitary flannel came from a 
wealthy client of Tom's, and finally, Jane offered to 
boil water three times a day and bring it over, scald- 
ing hot; but this reflection upon the capacity of Be- 
linda's own cook to perform a simple duty shut the 
doors on this philanthropist. '' I am sure I would 
never have taken the liberty of speaking of it had 
Mrs. Brown continued even externally well," said 
Belinda's intimate friend, the slimness of whose 
%ure has occasioned some heartburnings in one 
who professes to have '* given up all that sort of 
thing " and rejoices in being " perfectly simple and 
natural." " But I never thought she stood properly. 
One should project the upper part of the body, stand 
firmly on the heels, and take in a deep mouthful of 
air. Then those stays — really, I do not believe dear 
Mrs. Brown ever draws a free breath." These 
remarks, it is proper to say, were addressed to 
Janet's mamma, but in Belinda's presence, her inti- 
mate friend having the queer but popular notion 
that somehow, as the invalid was bedridden, she 



266 How Belinda Had the Grippe 

was partially deaf, and would hear only as much 
as it was intended that she should hear. At any 
rate, since the opinion thus frankly expressed had 
evidently been long harboured, whether Belinda 
ever got a free breath or not, may be debated; but 
not that for once her visitor had enjoyed that privi- 
lege. For myself, though I admired her courage, 
I own a shiver passed over me. That reference to 
" stays " — would it ever be wiped out ? Speaking 
with knowledge acquired after the event, I am at 
liberty to say '* no." This, I take it, was the 
amateur practitioner's last opportunity to see how 
Belinda draped the curtains in her upstairs sitting- 
room. 

I hardly like to admit that it was with something 
like relief, in the midst of these lacerated feelings, 
these gymnastics, these capsules, these innocuous 
juices, that I heard the jarring, but cheerful tones of 
Belinda's husband in the hall below. " Come up. 
Doctor," it called out. " Here you are, Belinda, 
I've brought you the real article this time, saddle- 
bags and all" ; and, *' like a ghost from the tomb," 
in walked the exponent of the extinct theory of al- 
lopathic orthodoxy. 

" These systems, my dear lady," remarked the last 
survivor of his school, while he mixed a bitter 
draught with his own plump hands, are " ancillary 
to science, unauthorised, indeed, but not hostile. 
Grape juice, gold dust, poising one foot in the air 



How Belinda Had the Grippe 267 

and putting all the weight on the other, are not in- 
jurious to the human frame, unless too long persisted 
in. However, if you want to get up to-mor- 
row " " I do,'' said Belinda with a solemnity 

that she had not employed while making her mar- 
riage vow, and she swallowed the dose. 



XXV 
Ube Cult ot 3Belna 3Bu0i? 

CUSTOMS change. In our time people aimed 
at having an air of leisure. I remember that, 
when very respectable people had an eye to their 
own preserving and jellying, it was considered the 
height of decorum to leave the kettle at the boil- 
ing point and enter the parlour with the manner of 
having laid down Tennyson's '' Idylls " or a tea- 
cloth which one was embroidering as a legacy for 
one's grandchildren. But now it is the fashion to 
be busy, and it was in our little street, and compara- 
tively recently, that our belated perceptions took in 
the mode. 

For three years we have watched the little lady 
across the way, who has sat in dull placidity at her 
window, looking into the quiet place that, at its gay- 
est, is enlivened by a perambulator or the visit of 
the policeman to the backdoor of decent red-brick 
houses. Sometimes, Christmas times, she has cro- 
cheted, and once Jane saw a green volume which 
she declared had the look of " The Broken Troth " 
slide off her knees. Hers was an empty life, we 

268 



The Cult of Being Busy 269 

thought with sentiment, having formed our opinion 
from the scrutinising, but not unfriendly, glances 
that we had cast upon it ; and when a friend told us 
that, having changed one's hair from brown to gold, 
it took every minute of a normal intelligence to keep 
it of a uniform colour, we seriously thought of buy- 
ing a bottle of this occupying material and sending 
it to our neighbour (anonymously, of course,) to 
help her pass her time. What, then, was our sur- 
prise when, the other day, we met her 011 the corner, 
to hear her break out with : " So glad to see you, — 
been wanting to call, but one is so dreadfully busy. 
Every minute taken up, things piling upon one, 
things one simply can't neglect! Do come to see 
me without waiting, for I somehow feel that yoii 
two always have so little to do. Well, I must run. 
Good-bye! Good-bye!" The flutter of her little 
grey gown created a gentle breeze as she flitted 
around the boxpost, and Jane, who is of a sanguine 
cast of mind, went home and told Janet that the mid- 
dle-aged lawyer who called Sunday afternoons had 
spoken, and that the little lady was getting her wed- 
ding-clothes. 

And then on the heels of her, a bustling young 
matron, the mother of the person who rolls up and 
down in the perambulator, woke the echoes in our 
drawing-room by descending upon it like a troop of 
horses upon a slow-moving caravan. " I just ran 
in for a moment; such a rush, going from morning 



270 The Cult of Being Busy 

till night, not a moment one can call one's own, 
owing everybody visits, social obligations that 
simply can't be put off. How perfectly sweet and 
restful it is here! Such peace! Such quiet! 
Well, I suppose I shouldn't envy you, but I just do." 

Janet's mamma adjusted her mental eyeglasses. 
No, her vision had not deceived her. This was the 
ambitious, hearty young person who went down 
town when there was an extra sheet of advertise- 
ments in the morning paper, and who called it spring 
and fall when her costumes, appropriate to those 
seasons, came home. The tribute to our own de- 
serted mansion and our own empty hands contrasted 
with the overflowing tide of work and pleasure that 
had swept over our neighbours, somehow, was not 
as gratifying as an inexperienced person would sup- 
pose. '' Jane," said she who adresses you, " Jane, 

Mrs. M has turned out to be a pretentious, giddy 

sort of creature. I pity her husband and her poor 
child." 

And then it was going to church, or on some such 
worthy errand, that I came upon an old friend with 
whom Jane and I had gone to school, and in conse- 
quence could never be made to believe in her abil- 
ities, since during our intercourse she had not been 
able to acquire the art of committing to memory 
Mrs. Hemans' " I hear thee speak of the Better 
Land." "Glad to see you," she exclaimed briskly, 
that crisp, important, decided briskness which the tor- 



The Cult of Being Busy 271 

pid intelligence is beginning to recognise in so many 
of its acquaintances, '* for if I had not met you here, 
I do not know when it would have come about. I 
see nothing of my friends. I belong to the public- 
hospital meetings, board meetings, committee meet- 
ings, secretary of this, chairman of that. To be 
sure, I have my day, but there are always crowds of 
people I care nothing for, whom I must be civil to 
on account of my charities. Can't you come in 
some time immediately after breakfast (I take it in 
my room) ? I'd like to see you so much, and Jane, 
— by the way, what has become of Jane? Why, 

there is Mrs. W '' 

Janet's mamma had no opportunity to reply to this 
somewhat belittling question. Without waiting for 
an answer, her interlocutress — (yes, there is such a 
word, I have with my own eyes read it in the im- 
maculate pages of the North American Review, in 
the columns of Henry James) — her interlocutress 
turned her broad back upon her and trotted off to 
catch a form of similar dimensiojis, which was evi- 
dently under like pressure of affairs. Though I 
was carrying half a dozen bundles I felt singularly 
*' empty-handed," as the poet hath it, and was only 
restored to my accustomed self-complacency by re- 
calling the intellectual deficiencies of my sometime 
fellow pupil, and reflecting that the mind that for 
ten years refused to accept the proposition that three 
times twelve is thirty-six, could not have acquired 



2/2 The Cult of Being Busy 

superiority over one that cheerfully admitted the 
justice of eight nines in seventy- two. 

And still, simple souls ! we did not suspect that this 
profession of occupations in so violent a form was 
but a wave of fashion — was but a cult of the hour. 
We did not suspect it when the lady who writes 
for the Lady's H / came in at twi- 
light, very tired and dressed — after the manner of 

Mrs. E S P D 's heroines — in a 

flowing white robe, with soft laces at the throat and 
a rose of " compelling " perfume in her hair — the 
dress, in fact, that in our plain way we would call 
a " Mother Hubbard." She stole in, almost spirit- 
wise, and glided to the low stool in front of the 
fire. '' So restful," she murmured, in that low voice 
that men are always praising, but when used by 
their own womenkind, profess not to be able to hear, 
" this little green spot in the midst of the dusty, 
hurried way!" C* No, John, listen for yourself; 
I will not tell you what she says.") "My life is 
so-so-so full! so-so strenuous! There are so many 
voices calling out to me for help — voices in the dark- 
ness. — drowning people who clutch at my hands." 
C Nonsense, John, she doesn't mean what she says. 
Really, no use to run for your life-preserver.") 
" And I am so tired, so tired of people, so tired of 
thoughts ! Oh, I envy you, your peace, your calm ! 
My life is a turgid stream." 

Again the critical person may perceive in these 



The Cult of Being Busy 273 

reproductions a touch of acerbity. It arises from 
the fact that each of the reporter's acquaintances, 
while insisting upon her own laborious occupations 
— the incessant demands made upon her, socially, 
benevolently, intellectually, united in ignoring our 
importance, and congratulated us upon the absence 
of these absorbing interests. Of course, I suppose a 
high-minded person would not mind; but for Jane 
and me, frankly, it is not pleasant tO' be referred to 
by our intellectual inferiors as sitting in an empty 
drawing-room, with folded hands, and minds bare 
as trees in late December. 

When Lucy, you remember, in that pious and en- 
gaging classic, " The Fairchild Family," was la- 
menting that her dress was not fresh for the party, 
Lady Augusta gave her this sound advice : " Go, 
dear Lucy, and stand behind your mamma, and be 
assured that nobody will notice you or your dress; " 
a counsel that, fraught as it was with good sense, 
did not carry with it that consolation that was to be 
expected from so admirable a remedy. Were we, 
indeed, then, drones in the hive, especially Jane, the 
continuance of whose very existence had been 
doubted by a former friend? 

In one of those moments of self-abasement that 
come to the proudest spirits, we did think that we 
had nothing to do, that we were bidden nowhere, 
even that we were left behind in the procession. But 
gradually the mist cleared away. We saw things 



274 The Cult of Being Busy 

as they were, we recognised the cult. The school 
friend really managed no more charities than Jane, 
who was supposed to have gone where charities have 
their final reward. The Helper of her drowning 
sex had her monthly stunt to do, and nothing more, 
and indeed was willing to add to her cares — for the 
usual honorarium. The little lady across the way 
still sat in the window and looked out aimlessly into 
the dull street, and the middle-aged lawyer could not 
have said the word that meant wedding clothes. The 
bustling young matron attended to her domestic 
duties, as she had always done, and had as little idea 
as ever of plunging into teas and balls. Even our 
new clergyman who frowned and said : " I can give 
you five minutes, pray be explicit," was discovered 
to sit in his study, uninterrupted, three mornings in 
the week, writing a sermon about Sin and George 
Eliot, sin being compared to leprosy, in the old fash- 
ion, and George Eliot presented for her literary 
flavour, and the modern appeal to the novel. All 
this crowding of affairs, this pressure, this " ful- 
ness " was indeed a cult, and Jane and I were not 
without the pale, but simply ignorant of the style. 



A 



XXVI 
1Rer\>ou6 iptosttatton 

FRIEND tells me that one of her most 



cherished intimates has suddenly assumed 
toward her an attitude of distant reserve and 
standoffishness. Yesterday they were like the twin 
swans in Spenser's '' Epithalamion "; to-day — 
oceans divide them. And this, through no sudden 
access of fortune on the side of the offended one; 
she has neither discovered an ancestor nor inherited 
a million; but she is superior, she is cold, she has 
changed. What has come between them and the 
" warm, glad handclasp " ? 

Well, she who attempts to solve the mystery of 
the female mind invites the daws, but Jane and I 
were generous with the results of our experience. 
When a lady suddenly adopts a threatening mien, is 
distant, reserved, investigation is pretty sure to dis- 
cover that one of her children has a contagious 
disease. 

There is nothing like a case of scarlet fever to 
make a mother conceited. Measles have an inflating 
tendency; and German measles, which are not of 

275 



2/6 Nervous Prostration 

themselves malevolent, but are capable of giving 
diseases, bring with them the moral and intellectual 
aggrandisement of the authorship of a new novel, or 
the discovery of some new condiment to serve with 
grape fruit. 

To illustrate: The other day we were called to 
the telephone by a friend whose habitual attitude of 
deference has been one of our reasons for remain- 
ing in this street rather than remove to a more fash- 
ionable quarter. But instead of the flattering, even 
deprecatory : ''So sorry to disturb you," we were 
met with a peremptory : "I am quite too occupied to 
keep my engagement to pour at your tea, and you'd 
better get someone else." 

This from our vine-like friend, to whom I had 
been a brick wall and she the trellis! Had young 

D , whose attentions to her Maria Jane and I 

had scrutinised with interested but sceptical eyes, 
had young D come up to the cold steel ? 

That voice, emancipated, self-contained, superior, 
betrayed a mysterious change in her position. 

We suffered a moment of anxiety. 

" Jane," said the author severely, " did you tell 
what I told you?" 

Then all was revealed. '' Little Martha had a 
rash," came booming through the tube. " The 
doctor can't decide what it is, but he thinks measles. 
She has had measles, but some children with very 
sensitive organisations," and here even the cold 



Nervous Prostration ^ 277 

medium of the telephone '' pulsed " as we say, with 
a tide of maternal pride, '' some children have them 
twice." 

Of course it is painful to have to wait for a dis- 
ease to run its course, to regain one's friend; but this 
is a part of life. When little Martha recovers we 
shall have her back, like Douglas in the poem, in 
the old likeness that we knew. 

But if a child's passing ailment inflates the parent, 
how much more a matter of exultation when one is 
one's self attacked. 

As it has been my fortune in life to talk to a great 
many ladies, I have never r^retted that when Pan- 
dora opened the box she let out diseases. They 
have furnished me topics of conversation in places 
where the springs of language ran low, and so 
thoroughly do I believe in the magic quality of the 
simple word '' peritonitis," that I would stake my 
all on the experiment that, did I enter a room in 
which a dozen deaf and dumb females were seated, 
and utter that inspiring substantive, a flood of 
speech would rush to their lips, and, with simultane- 
ous action, the dumb would break the chords and 
pour forth their experience. 

She was a pale lady, of a colourless type, and, in 
return for the hospitality of a week, my hostess in 
the country evidently thought it my duty to enter- 
tain her all through one breathless summer's after- 
noon. But she had no children, she was fixed in her 



2/8 Nervous Prostration 

religious belief: of what should we talk, what had 
we in common to stir the sluggish depths? Some- 
thing within me (it was a malarial district) whis- 
pered: ''Try chills." You have doubtless seen a 
muddy pond under a grey sky, and then beheld it, 
rosy and dimpled, flushing under the rays of the 
western sun. " Yes," she responded with liveliness, 
she had had them for three months and then suc- 
cumbed to typhoid fever. 

There she sat before my face and eyes. — no ap- 
parition, but flesh and, well, good chalk and water. 
But when I heard that faithful account of her 
typhoid fever spell, I could not make myself believe 
that she had recovered. Three doctors had given 
her up, she was in a stupor, then delirium, then a 
stupor again. 

And with a relentlessness that would have made 
her fortune, had she been the author of '' The Ken- 
tons," she forced me to drink every bitter draught, 
to swallow every powder; and, by an unsurpassed 
cruelty of fate, she did not dwell in the land of the 
capsules. And when she finally consented to open 
her eyes, to take notice, to go so far as to sit up, 
what do you think she did ? She had a relapse, that 
is what she did, and I had to do it all over again, 
drop by drop, powder by powder — to the bitter 
dregs. 

Had she simply gone to Europe the summer be- 
fore, or read Huysmans, we should have stood 



Nervous Prostration 279 

silently facing each other, Hke the two sphinxes at 
the entrance of the Temple of Rameses at Luxor; 
but typhoid fever was like sun on ice, and our 
spirits rushed together at the taking of the drops. 

And disease has a humanising influence. I recol- 
lect, on one occasion, being in Cambridge, after hav- 
ing suffered from an attack of rheumatism. The 
conductors in this city of the intellectually elite are 
not, as a rule, civil, and know no greater joy than to 
ignore the waving parasol, or the extended arm of 
the would-be passenger. Hoping to disarm them, I 
put on a great appearance of hurry and got within a 
half a square of the corner, Jane running and ges- 
ticulating ahead. The conductor was turning his 
adder's ear, when suddenly, responding to a whisper 
of her guardian angel she screamed : '' Wait a 
minute, she's got the rheumatism," and her finger 
indicated a panting figure in the rear. 

It is said that years after the disaster of the Pass 
of Thermopylae, the Spartan, at mention of that 
name, ceased his task, his game, his song. 

Such was the effect of the word " rheumatism " 
on that carload of people going to Boston, on er- 
rands of life — of death — it may be of shopping. 
" Got rheumatism, has she? " The motorman came 
to a full stop. ''Ever tried snake oil? They tell 

me " " Not so," interrupted the conductor, 

eagerly running down the steps and offering a filial 
arm. " You drijik thirty glasses of water a day; 



280 Nervous Prostration 

water's cheap," which impHed reflection upon our 
travelHng costumes, I saw, wounded Jane, who 
looked abashed. " Madam," said a respectable- 
looking man in a white waistcoat, " you ought to 
wear an electric ring. I suffered with your com- 
plaint, and I bought one and wore it, and didn't 
mind being laughed at," and he held up a fat finger, 
and scowled at the grave and interested passengers. 
" You would better think you are well, and you 
would be well." 

That '' would better " placed her — the sweet- 
faced, you-are-all-my-very-own-brothers-and-sisters 
person in neat grey. Until she had found the truth, 
she had taught — grammar grade No. 4. Now she 
*^ just lived, and helped other people to live." She 
waved a black bag at me, and made a seat for me 
at her side. 

'' It don't kill, that's the worst of it. Mother-in- 
law's had it for twenty-five years." The lean coun- 
tryman was rewarded with subdued, but sincere ex- 
pressions of applause, such as was proper in the face 
of calamity. 

But the point is, I got on a Cambridge street car, 
having delayed it five minutes, and was received 
with the respect accorded the Irish members of 
Parliament when they were expelled from that body. 

But there is one matter about which I must be 
plain with you. It is not necessary to have suffered 
in one's own person. Frequently the chalice is 



Nervous Prostration 281 

dashed from our lips when we are about to claim the 
attention of an audience on account of a surgical 
operation. Another woman, before we have more 
than framed our first sentence, snatches the morsel 
from our lips, seizes the narrative, and leaves us 
gaping and bewildered. And this not to show her 
own scars, but to descant upon what an aunt or a 
supposititious cousin has gone through. 

I tell you this because I have myself, and so has 
Jane, known ladies, inspired by the motive which 
made Herostratus burn down the Temple of Diana 
at Ephesus, submit to the knife at the hands of am- 
bitious young surgeons. Now this trial is not at all 
necessary to give you coveted distinction. No mat- 
ter how baffling your complaint, how dangerous 
your operation, it is not you who will get the ear of 
an assembly of your sex, but the other lady, whose 
relation, not herself, has been dissected ; and lacking 
a relation, she will contribute something she has 
culled from a medical journal. Far be it from me 
in general to urge such advice, but for these occa- 
sions, refrain from being yourself, be the other lady. 

But conceited as are people who have lost their 
vermiform appendices, sensitive as she who affects 
hysteria, as demanding as she who " must breathe " 
(which request at first sight does not condemn 
her as exacting, but really means that she re- 
quires "ozone," a substance not always on tap), as 
troublesome as are people with dyspepsia, who look 



282 Nervous Prostration 

offended if you invite them to eat potatoes and — ^to 
a proffer of coffee say " I ? Coffee? " as if a person 
of intelligence should know by intuition what they 
can or cannot assimilate — as helpless as one deprived 
of " the headache," that armour of the weak, that 
mantle of the incompetent, all these ailments are as 
moonlight is to sunlight and as water is to wine, 
compared to that mysterious and exclusive ailment 
to which I dare not give a title. 

For the caretakers of those so afflicted always 
keep the name of their malady from them, assuring 
them that they have pneumonia or smallpox, or 
some illness which will not inflame their vanity, and 
make them troublesome and exacting patients. 

And those who really have, or worse, affect this 
disease, are so delighted to see themselves in print, 
that their families, having read and extracted all 
the virtue from it, as men do from the morning 
paper, are more than likely to throw this book in the 
fire, where it will meet with the fate of Hans Ander- 
sen's '' Little Tin Soldier." 

However, in the hope of possessing the qualities 
of a salamander, I take the liberty of offering to all 
those who' have the somewhat costly honour of en- 
tertaining a case of nervous prostration, my respect- 
ful condolences. It would be apologies, but that, as 
the Irishman said of a certain sustaining fluid, any 
disease is better than no disease, and I am sure that, 
to the world at large, to which it is a mystery, like 



Nervous Prostration 283 

the veiled statue of I sis at Thebes, no more enthrall- 
ing topic can be suggested. 

For myself, I believe that nervous prostration is 
a new malady. Of course we are all acquainted with 
" nerves." Until the last twenty years no self-re- 
specting female was without them. In Jane's and 
my time, they were not as bad as Mrs. Radcliffe de- 
picted them, and those fainting fits that even sen- 
sible Miss Ferrier laid on the sloping shoulders of 
heroines were reserved for the aristocracy. But not 
even Scott would have sent one of his damsels out 
into the world with a wardrobe so poor as one in 
which this truly feminine characteristic was not 
among the pale blue silks, the silver lace, and the 
jeweled aiguillettes. 

But nervous prostration is a totally different 
thing, and to show myself the reader's real friend, 
I will say : If you do not want your young woman 
who is threatened with it, to learn all about it, I 
advise you to remark in her presence that you have 
just posted this book to your Aunt Matilda who 
lives in the country. 

Nervous prostration is the disease, primarily, of 
the rich. So well is this known, that when my poor 
friend was taken down with it, her doctor — a man of 
little finesse but a good deal of sincerity — said: 
" But for certain circumstances, I should diagnose 
this as nervous prostration"; "certain circum- 
stances " meaning her circumstances. And it also 



284 Nervous Prostration 

pertains to those of high-strung mental and physical 
fibre. One seldom sees it in the South, because the 
first condition of its existence is lacking, and one 
also seldom sees it here, as we are known to. be both 
inert and phlegmatic. 

It has, therefore, none of the disgraceful qualities 
of a bad cold, of mumps, or of a fever — which 
even people in Georgia can have; but it is something 
to be proud of , glad of, like the wound of a soldier 
in battle. 

A person who was so rich that imagination failed 
her to think of anything to do, showed, in our 
opinion, no mean talent when she invented this dis- 
ease to puzzle the medical fraternity. We spoke of 
the inflating effect of measles, but do you know a 
parent who could restrain a throb of maternal pride, 
could she but mention that the thing she brought 
into the v/orld had this exclusive disease, confined 
to millionaires and physical and intellectual athletes ? 

It is life over again. My neighbour goes to 
Paris and buys the most exclusive costumes^ — made 
for her in all the sacredness of the designer's closet, 
and a week after her return, all the women of her 
acquaintance have copied and improved upon them. 
If nervous prostration could only be confined to 
those who are worthy to have it, Lady Croesus and 
geniuses, I think that even their nearest connection 
would be willing to be martyrised for the glory 
of it. 



Nervous Prostration 285 

But the disease has spread. I know of a news- 
paper correspondent who had set up signs of it till 
called down by her exacting superior, and I know 
also persons whose sole accomplishment (and, it 
must be admitted, sole employment) is " pouring " 
at afternoon teas, who have shown symptoms of it 
that only a sceptic would mistake. But the most in- 
teresting case I have seen recently is that of a lady 
on whom I went to call, who appeared in fashionable 
attire, it is true, but accompanied by a trained nurse, 
who sat behind her and made motions to indicate 
when the subjects I started were inimical to this 
peculiar disease. The mortal form of the invalid 
was so sensitive to maleficent influences that when 
I, being an old friend, took the liberty of raising a 
window, there was a commotion approaching that of 
the inhabitants of Kimberley when General French 
raised the siege. I spoke humbly of the deleterious 
influences of a draught to cover my confusion, and 
the nurse again made signs, and later I found that 
the latest treatment is to suggest no malign or pain- 
ful influences. 

Thinking to give a cheerful bit of news, I men- 
tioned the departure to a better world of old 

Mr. , who passed the last fifty years of his life 

in a rolling chair, and the last twenty (he was a 
Georgian, and one returns to one's first love) mis- 
taking his valet's head for a watermelon, and try- 
ing to carve it; but at this effort the nurse waved 



286 Nervous Prostration 

both hands and a fan, and spirited the patient out of 
the room, who disappeared weeping, leaving me 
with the feeHng of having wantonly broken a su- 
perior Sevres vase. My friend evidently took that 
solemn and personal view of the subject that was 
characteristic of a young preacher, from whom I 
had the happiness of receiving the following bit of 
news : " Socrates is dead. Plato is dead, and, my 
brethren, I, too, shall die." But I think it may be 
admitted that a trained nurse is as difficult a person 
to please as Louis the Eleventh, who burned at the 
stake all the artists who dared to caricature him, 
and, with equal impartiality, all the artists who' 
tried to reprove those who had laughed at him. 

The spectacle of the blue-robed, stiffly starched 
female with the " Oh, yes, dear," and '' Perhaps- 
after-we-have-rested-a-bit,-dear," air, superintend- 
ing the conversation like a vigilant Sunday-school 
teacher at a picnic, has, if the truth be told, turned 
the ambition of Jane and myself in adverse direc- 
tion, and we have almost made up our minds to pub- 
lish a series of papers on " What Our Novelists Can 
Eat," by way of exciting some interest in ourselves, 
though I am told we can do so by having appenJi- 
citis, which is open to all classes, but still retains 
its place like Lear, Hamlet, and Othello. 

Still, it must, be admitted, there is no disease so 
fraught with a charm all its own as nervous prostra 
tion. 



Nervous Prostration 287 

For instance; I have a friend (I hope you will not 
think me arrogant when I add, an intimate friend) 
whose unique affection is that she cannot put on her 
own gloves, though what she can do with anybody's 
else, I have not found out. But this incapacity has 
been related to me as a sort of badge of honour, like 
the medals at Sebastopol. And I have another 
friend, who, through choice, has sequestered herself 
in a dark room, with a trained nurse as her sole so- 
ciety. Of this last-named acquaintance I speak 
with the respect the Hindoos give those who have 
been afflicted by Siva and lost their wits. No sane 
person, whatever her disease, ever shut herself up 
for two months with a trained nurse for company. 

It is hard, after these experiences, to get the most 
affectionate audience to listen to me when I would 
proffer fitting words with which to address the vic- 
tim of nervous prostration. I am not myself clear 
about my own feelings concerning it. Do I, like the 
persons in Mr. Aldrich's poem, love it with a death- 
less hate, or hate it with a deathless love? Never- 
theless, whatever my words, like the goods of the 
Spanish shopkeepers, they are yours. 

I am pretty sure that the following is a safe re- 
mark. '' You must not make any effort, all you can 
do is to be fair to yourself." And to this, on my 
own responsibility, I will add : ^' You are now suffer- 
ing from the strain you have been under, and must 
vacate your own mind, as you would quit an empty 



288 Nervous Prostration 

room." One hesitates to praise one's self, but it 
really seems to me that these speeches are as perfect 
as an &gg, or the sonnet; and what the strain may 
have been, or whether one in full possession of her 
faculties would like to have her mind compared to 
an empty room, is no delicately minded person's 
business. 

As I write this sentence, which might be con- 
strued as uncomplimentary of the class I most rev- 
erence and respect, a silent, but critical relation, 
who, like the South American lizard, is a success as 
an ornament, but not as a conversationalist, turns 
toward me her handsome, but rebuking eyes. If they 
were speaking eyes they would say : " You, of all 
people, to scoff! You who go to bed simply to 
luxuriate in the society of those starchy angels, and 
who pity, of all the tired souls in the world, those 
distracted ones who suffer from the heartbreaking 
* I do not know what it is that ails me.' " 

But there is a road to light, even for these. It 
is the road taken by him whose life is told in the 
two red volumes that lie on the table. From his 
early boyhood till after that last hard fight in Samoa, 
Robert Louis Stevenson struggled with the elements 
that form the malady I have made a poor jest of — 
the bitterest, the most wearisome of all sicknesses. 
But for gaiety, for courage, for determination not 
to die — well, are they not written in these letters? 
You have but to read them to know his secret. 



Nervous Prostration 289 

''There seemed to be/' says Mr. Colvin, his 
editor, " more of vitality and fire of the spirit in him, 
as he lay exhausted and speechless in bed, than in an 
ordinary roomful of people." 

*'We did nothing for him," in Mr. Birrell's 
happy words; '* it was our doleful plight he sought 
to solace." 

And I do not recommend it, because I do not want 
to bring you sorrow, but for the cheerfulest, the 
most comforting words, and at the same time words 
that break the heart, read his letter to James Payn, 
when Payn's last illness was upon him, and Steven- 
son knew that he himself " could not hold out long." 

This '' Life and Letters " of Stevenson is the best 
tonic for nervous prostration. It costs two dollars, 
but then the starchy angel will cost her society and 
twenty-five dollars a week. 



XXVII 

IPervaMnQ ipet^onaltttes 

I HAVE been watching the funeral of the little 
lady across the street. Such an orderly funeral ! 
The children had their hair tied very tight in 
small, thin pigtails, and carried their handkerchiefs 
neatly folded in their black-gloved hands. The 
husband, poor man, stepped upon the sidewalk, but 
before he entered the house, though but lightly his 
shoes had touched the pavement, he carefully 
scraped his feet, and then rubbed them on the door- 
mat. Did I, or did I not see him glance furtively up 
toward the second-story front window, where one 
was wont to watch him? " She is not there to see 
or reprimand you," I came near calling out. But 
her spirit lingered, her pervading personality. That 
man will scrape his feet on the marble steps of the 
celestial city, does he live tO' get there. 

She was a small, spare little lady, with smooth 
flaxen hair, and for fifteen years she had held her 
calm despotic sway over that household. Gentle, 
lady-like, obstinate, she had managed to get her own 
way — the commonplace, usual way, to which the 

290 



Pervading Personalities 291 

whole world gave in. Jane and I used to watch her 
set out for church Sunday mornings, cool, amiable, 
self-possessed, her prayer-book opened with a sprig 
of geranium, her little vinaigrette in her left hand, 
her smooth, fair locks held in place with invisible 
hairpins. Her husband was a robust, red-cheeked 
creature, whose natural gait was between a run and 
a stumble. Every Sunday he slammed the front 
door, and every Sunday she sent him back to close it 
properly. At least such was the impression of 
neighbours, who were watching them behind closed 
blinds. It was reported to these neighbours that no 
member of her family ever succeeded in resisting 
the elegant composure of her opposition. Every 
morning she set a glass of flowers upon the 
writing table of her husband's father. He was a 
kind soul, but he did not like this particular atten- 
tion. So every day he threw away water and flow- 
ers, and one day he threw away the vase. But the 
morning succeeding this desperate act did not set 
him free. There was a twin of the discarded vase 
filled with water and flowers on his table. After 
that he gave up. 

Nobody, so we were informed, in that house, 
liked oatmeal ; but for fifteen years they sat down to 
oatmeal with regularity. 

It was told of one of her Sunday-school scholars, 
that one day he defied her. It seems that after hear- 
ing her especially naturalistic account of the episode 



292 Pervading Personalities 

of Jonah and the whale, he emitted a small, shrill 
whistle. This sort of thing has happened to me, and 
it was with interest that I awaited a record of her 
conduct upon this occasion; but what she did by way 
of chastisement does not seem so dreadful, written 
down here. It was the use O'f a single phrase: 
'' Pray, don't be vulgar," but, as uttered, it brought 
the scoffer to tears of impotent rage. 

When she died, it was of a singular affection. 
She asked for the moon, and her husband was in 
such perfect training that he got it for her, and she 
lost her mind because she could not make it get up 
and go down at the same time every night and every 
morning. 

And her friend's perfect security that she had 
gone to a better place — the best place, as they were 
orthodox — was founded on the fact that she re- 
quired everybody to be at her family prayers, and 
had neat hair. One thing, however, is certain: she 
has left a void over the way where I see her stout 
spouse walking up and down in restless grief, stoop- 
ing now and again to pick up a thread from the 
carpet. 

" Even in death," says Flaubert of the terrible 
Madame Bovary, " even in death she corrupted 
him." 

'And apropos of this experience, somebody came 
in the other day and placed a sprig of jessamine on 
my desk, For a little while it lay there in its bronze- 



Pervading Personalities 293 

green leaves, the pale yellow blossoms with pear- 
shaped corolla exuding the faint, exquisite perfume. 
A little while and the flower opened, the faint odour 
had grown an overpowering one, filling nose, mouth, 
and lungs, and it became an imminent question 
which should quit the place, the flower or I, for 
there was no room for both. And while I was medi- 
tating upon seizing the spray and throwing it out of 
the window, what you would probably call my mor- 
bid sensibilities forbade. In destroying the jessa- 
mine, I would have gratified, in an occult way Mr. 
Lafcadio Hearn would understand, a long cherished 
wish in regard to one whom it greatly resembled. 

That flower brought back a lady, beautiful, ro- 
mantic, young, with whom we passed a month last 
summer at a mountain resort. She came into our 
plain little company of short skirts and shirt waists, 
our bare heads and sunburned faces, like a princess 
among churls — glowing, radiant, with shining hair 
and luxuriant bloom, with ribbons, laces, and soft 
flowing garments. And though she took a humble 
place in our spare little dining-room, like Montrose 
disguised as Lord Kilpont's groom when he sat be- 
low the salt, where she sat was the head of the table. 

This was one's impression when we first saw her 
enter the room, with only the flame of a smoky 
kerosene lamp to light her splendours. But the next 
day the atmosphere of the place was completely 
changed from one of easy negligence to one of 



294 Pervading Personalities 

troublesome ambitions. The shirt waists underwent 
a critical examination; people bewailed and berated 
themselves that they had not put in '' just one even- 
ing gown "; the rare, spoiled men of the party, who, 
up to this time, would not permit their humble ad- 
mirers to sniff the odours of tobacco from pipes 
smoked in the room with them, but huddled together 
under a tree, appeared next night in careful, if un- 
successful, toilets, and lingered about the door for 
what they did not themselves confess. 

A week had not passed, but we found the presence 
of the beautiful but stimulating guest fatiguing. 
We could not get away from her. She pervaded the 
place, the air, the piazzas, with her little shawls, her 
French novels, the glimmer of her Navajo blanket 
under the trees. There was nothing offensive in her 
attitude, but it was dominant; and, do what we 
would, she projected herself into our lives. 

Jane, who has not, in general, the slightest curi- 
osity about how people sleep, or whether their food 
assimilates properly, Jane was heard eagerly asking 
if " Mrs. 's bed was comfortable," and experi- 
enced anxiety lest the flapjacks prove indigestible. 
The fact was, that woman put us all on tiptoe, in 
which strained attitude (which was like nothing so 
much as the preparation for the Exodus, when 
people ate with staves in their hands) we took our 
meals, while all other topics of gossip, except her 
doings, died on the porch. 



Pervading Personalities 295 

The perfume of jessamine indeed had become too 
heavy to be supported in air that we constantly 
breathed. And so plainly was this opinion written 
upon our countenances that an acquaintance, to 
whom I permitted freedom of speech in return for 
buckboard rides, said to me : '' Why are you so 

jealous of Mrs. ? She doesn't encroach on 

your ground, that I see." 

To which question I replied : *' No, I am not 
jealous. I simply do not want to be in the house 
with anyone who occupies my attention to a para- 
mount degree. I do not like to stretch my neck, 
even to look at a queen; I do not like to have to live 
up to people, or consider them. When I was young 
I had to go to a certain watering place every summer 
where some people named Falconer-Bridges went. 
The place exuded Falconer-Bridges. When I was 
older I was made to go to a hotel where my recep- 
tion depended upon the landlady's state of mind; she 
was a pervading personality, and we passed our days 
wondering who was her favourite, and whom she 
disliked; though, to be fair, she disliked almost 
everybody, except some servile spirits who went to 
what I call night school, to her daughter — a lady 
who wished to go to college some day, and was 
making money by lecturing, hot summer evenings, 
on the American poets. With all these experiences 
back of me, that dominant note, however sweet, has 
a discordant sound. Hence, my dear," and here 



296 Pervading Personalities 

Janet's mamma looked affectionately upon the one 
to whom she had taken the trouble to explain her- 
self, '' hence, I prefer a comfortable common- 
placeness." 

I was relating this experience to a friend, the one 
in whom I have the most implicit confidence, and 
wondering* if I was narrow-minded to object to the 
overpowering jessamine, when she told me that she 
met me with comprehension — that she too had once 
passed a month in a country place of similar char- 
acter with two interesting persons whom she called 
" the Simpsons.'' They were very civil, very intel- 
ligent, and both possessed pervading personal- 
ities. My friend, who had adopted for both mind 
and body a summer costume of black alpaca and 
straw hat, trimmed with mull, was without ambi- 
tion, and played best with her kind. The Simp- 
sons, however, soon entered her life, and possessed 
themselves of it in a manner most repugnant to her- 
self. They had the toothache, and people went 
around with little flannel bags filled with pepper and 
disputed hotly whether the sufferers should hold 
whiskey in their mouths or swallow it, though Mr. 
Simpson was all for the latter method. Once well 
out of this malady, Mr. Simpson promptly sprained 
his ankle, and she, a poet, lost her manuscript in 
the woods. In presence of these calamities, my 
friend had an attack of peritonitis, from which she 
recovered without aid, her disease being of too in- 



Pervading Personalities 297 

significant a nature to mention even to her doctor. 
In fact, at its worst, she confesses to have crawled 
up a steep incHne on her knees, imagining that she 
saw at its summit a bit of white paper fluttering 
among the leaves — the missing lyrics. 

I do not think that the Simpsons prided them- 
selves upon their personality or intruded it upon 
others. It was, in fact, a misfortune, like that of 
the mortal to whom the goddess of Dawn persuaded 
Jupiter to grant immortality, forgetting to ask that 
youth be joined with the gift. For my friend's 
interest in them was eternal, but her dislike grew 
till she quitted the spot which sheltered them and 
her. Would she, but for respect for the law, have 
thrown them out of the window (you see I per serve 
my metaphor of the jessamine) ? She tells me that 
she could no more have lived with them than have 
lived with Wagner's music or as the wife of Socrates. 

Now a simple person would not suppose that a 
piece of furniture could be endowed with a personal- 
ity, but it can. One day we got a notice informing 
us that the custom house held for us a package of 
great value, sent by a relation whom we had long 
loved by reputation, but never seen; a relation, in 
fact, for whom we cherish that spontaneous affec- 
tion that it is natural to accord the wealthy and the 
childless. 

With trembling fingers and palpitating hearts the 
entire family united in opening the case which con- 



298 Pervading Personalities 

tained the present, and when it appeared from be- 
neath the mass of scented paper and straw, what 
was our dehght when the throne of a Begum lay 
exposed to view. It was made of carved teakwood, 
the ivory head of Vishnu, with amethysts for eyes, 
looking down from the arch of the back, while Idra 
and Agni stared at us with obtruding orbs of jade 
in the curved arms. 

I suppose there is no one, however bold, who 
would consent to look in the mouth the gift of a 
childless uncle. This had awe-inspiring teeth and 
a red throat, and we put it with awe in the midst 
of our own Michigan machine-made furniture, and 
Jane, to show a pleasing familiarity with thrones, 
hung a pink silk tidy over its left arm. 

The arrival of our throne caused a great excite- 
ment in our neighbourhood, and people flocked to 
see us^ — ostensibly — but really to see it. It was so 
large that our tables and chairs, of somewhat fragile 
make, had the look of having been made for dwarfs 
or Lilliputians. The chromos " Alone at Last," and 
" Easter Eggs," on which we had expected to feast 
our eyes for coming generations, were raw and 
modern in the presence of those staring orbs, that 
mystic countenance. To make room for it we had 
to banish our tea table and the Dresden china cups 
and saucers with the rosebuds on the rim, the gilt 
sofa, upon which John culled wisdom from the 
pages of Symonds' '' Renaissance in Italy," with his 



Pervading Personalities 299 

eyes shut. To live up to that throne, in fine, de- 
prived us of every earthly comfort and most of 
our friends. We became suspicious when they 
called, charging them with coming to see it, not us. 
It belittled the rest of our possessions, and, though 
it made them cheap, was in itself no solace for their 
loss. Its pervading personality caused it to assume 
the aspect of the Juggernaut, and it crushed us with 
its wheels. Having placed it in my own mind with 
the Beautiful Guest who was the serpent in the Adi- 
rondack paradise and the Simpsons who spoiled my 
poor friend's summer, I took matters in my own 
hands, and, having picked out its baneful eyes, I 
sold my throne to a traveling show. 

But I could not pick out Elvira's eyes, nor could 
I have sold her. It takes two to make a bargain. 

The other night Jane and I went to a dinner, and 
when we got home, I heard her call in a loud, im- 
perious voice, ''Oh, Ma' Ann! oh. Ma' Ann! come 
here directly. Bring my very oldest slippers, the 
ones with holes in them that I was going to give to 
the poor, and then go to the pantry and bring me 
anything you can find to eat." These remarks were 
addressed to a coloured person whose intellect is not 
wholly developed, and who is still under the impres- 
sion that she belongs to Jane, who, for reasons of 
her own, has not mentioned to her the change in 
her situation that came about in 1865. 
• One of the advantages of living with a person 



300 Pervading Personalities 

all your life is that, when she conducts herself out 
of the ordinary, you do not have to ask why. I per- 
fectly understood Jane's necessity for physical re- 
laxation after mental strain, and, though I had no 
one who had been free for more than forty years, 
but who still considered herself in bondage, to assist 
me, I, too, began at once to divest myself of cordage. 

And then we both sat before the study fire and 
talked about the guest of the evening, Elvira Man- 
ton. " Opportunities to congratulate myself upon 
my insignificance have not been few, you know," said 
Jane, " and our hostess did not deviate this evening 
from her rule of putting me behind a large epergne, 
where I could escape notice. I suppose at least that 
she intended me to escape notice, but she did not 
know Elvira. From mere exuberance and flow of 
wit Elvira turned her siphon on me. I was just 
about to put a bit of roast duckling, stuffed with 
olives, to my lips, when she directed her aim at me. 
The man behind my chair, of course, saw his oppor- 
tunity, and seized my plate. I looked up at Elvira, 
as I felt bound to do, smiled, looked down for my 
plate. It was gone. 

" Old Mr. Swain, who always takes me in to 
dinner, then knew that he was in harm's way, and 
preparing himself for her next onslaught, caught his 
plate in both hands and, half rising, stood open- 
mouthed to receive the dart. He looked very plain. 
But he didn't care for that. He cared for his duck- 



Pervading Personalities 301 

ling. Sure enough, in a moment he was struck in 
the face. Elvira's javelin this time was sheathed in 
French, a language which I myself prefer to have 
addressed to me slowly, that I may collect my irreg- 
ular verbs. But old Mr. Swain, no doubt, felt that 
time would not be of material aid to him, so he sput- 
tered, '' Very good, 'pon my word, very good," and 
when the liveried minion sprang for the plate, he 
turned upon him such a look of frozen indignation 
that the creature started back, like Fear, in Camp- 
bell's poem. * That woman,' said old Mr. Swain, 
turning toward Elvira his little green eyes, ' that 
woman gives me a pain in the small of my neck,' 
and he tried to show me the affected spot with his 
heavy finger. But not believing in the existence of 
the small of any portion of his ponderous person, I 
refused to look at it. 

" I am sure I do not want to hurt your feelings," 
continued Jane, " but you have no idea how you all 
looked while Elvira mesmerised you. There she sat, 
all black jet and white satin, with an aigrette in her 
hair, nodding, jingling, scintillating, looking up and 
down the table, subduing you with her glance, like 
the lion-tamer at the circus. Belinda faded away like 
a wraith before her eyes, and you, at the first refer- 
ence to a witticism that passed between the Due de 
Rochefoucauld and Mile, de Bourbon, you started 
an understanding smile. But before your first had 
died on your lips, Elvira had set another bon-mot 



302 Pervading Personalities 

going, so that your features were like stiffening clay 
— indeed, if you had been perfectly beautiful, I 
would compare you to the Medusa in the Uffizi — 
the moment, you know, when she finds her hair is 
made of snakes." 

And for a fact, but for the last remark of dubious 
compliment, what Jane said was true. 

We had met — a party of congenial people, who 
spoke the same language and came from the same 
country — who, when I alluded to the " Cogswell 
affair," knew what I meant, and were equally at 
home when someone spoke of " The Runaway." 
We were of the usual age, too, — well! we had not 
definitely admitted anything, but we ladies with 
decollete gowns wore high collars of pearl or other 
obtainable jewels. 

Into these calm waters Elvira sailed her yacht, 
all the steam on ; and, as a person who knows better 
can say anything, acted as a hand grenade and put 
out all our fires. 

You heard Jane call for food, but if after this 
bountiful repast Jane was hungry, fancy the de- 
pleted condition of people at whom Elvira had aimed 
before they had tasted their soup? 

It was a pitiful spectacle — that of old General 
Stacy, for whom Jane and I always vote for Con- 
gress, with the red-pepper cruet in his hand, and 
the consomme smiling under his eyes, while Elvira 
pelted him with epigrams culled from St. Simon. 



Pervading Personalities 303 

Before he could collect himself the minions had got 
off the second course — something hot and delicious, 
with curry in it ; and the first thing he could get his 
hand on was an ice. He looked, and so did the rest 
of us, after an hour of the enchaining Elvira, like 
codfish — those you see on the wharfs in New Eng- 
land fishing towns, cold, and filled with congealed 
blood. She had another queer effect which I recog- 
nised in a dim fashion, as having felt before; I put it 
down to the period when I was in a lower form of 
existence — say a frog or a rabbit, and the subject 
of fascination by snakes and other reptiles, but could 
not place the time or seon, when I was assisted by 
a woman who sat next me after we left the dining- 
room — a dull, bovine creature, but with a sort of 
instinct which amply supplies the place of mind. 

" I felt all during the dinner as if I were back at 
Miss Jackson's boarding school. Elvira has the 
same way of looking at everyone at once when she 
speaks, and I was afraid that if I took my eyes from 
her face, she would call out : ' Lack of attention. 
Miss Dillard, ten demerits and no dessert.' You 
remember, don't you ? " 

Indeed I did remember. The creature, in her 
ambling way, had struck the note. Elvira, the 
brilliant, produced the effect of which our boarding- 
school mistress was past-master, and with that " No 
dessert," inflicted the same sort of punishment. I 
hope this most deserving class will not take offence 



304 Pervading Personalities 

at this confession, but the fact is that, when I go to 
a dinner party, I do not care to fancy myself back 
again under Miss Jackson's unflinching eye. 

Thinking it over, before the fire, Jane and I have 
decided that people with strong personalities ought 
not to go out. Their minds are a kingdom to them, 
as they will modestly tell you, and in our opinion 
they should stay on their own property. 



XXVIII 

Xtbe IRew Bttquette 

MAMMA," said Janet, in her clear and reso- 
nant voice, which holds as much of mys- 
tery and as much of coquetry as a marble paper- 
weight, '' I wish you wouldn't call people ' ladies ' 
and ' gentlemen.' It not only sounds as if you 
came out of the ark, but I think it immoral. To 
profane the noble name of woman by giving her a 
title which conveys the idea of helplessness and 
incapacity, and to call a man by a word that conveys 
the idea of caste, is to rob them of their highest title 
of respect. And I wish you wouldn't say ' ma'am.' 
Nobody but servants say ' ma'am ' ! Well, I believe 
courtiers do so address the Queen, and maybe one 
may say it to one's grandmother, but really in this 
country, it isn't done. And won't you and Aunt 
Jane please not rise and shake hands when men come 
into the room ? It's such wretched form, and morti- 
fies me so." 

During Janet's appeal to my conscience to abolish 
the ignoble words '' lady " and " gentleman," Jane 
and I exchanged glances. By what possible con- 

305 



306 The New Etiquette 

trariety of circumstances, had this barndoor fowl 
been hatched in a nest of Hnnets hke mother and 
aunt ? For what sHp in a previous state of existence 
was I now suffering the humihation of a child who 
talks like a Boston public-school graduate, has fed 
on Mrs. Whitney for a spiritual pabulum, and spent 
a year, as an object lesson to aspiring poverty, in a 
college settlement? 

These unanswerable questions presented them- 
selves to my mind (I believe I told you that Jane 
and I have quick intelligences), while I was being 
lectured on my abuse of titles ; but I rallied, and had 
pleasure in recognising the influence of heredity 
when the child appealed to my regard to '' good 
form." Therefore to this counsel, — delivered with- 
out excitement, but with that calm air of conviction 
that always has the paralysing effect upon Jane and 
me of making us pause and think, — I really had no 
reply ready. I have always wanted to be like other 
people, and disliked and feared the disapprobation 
of the veiled divinity known as '' They say." Per- 
haps I should have talked the matter over with 
her, but Janet always has a pressing engagement, 
when I want to discuss things, to teach some 
stranger how " to sweep a room, as for thy laws," 
or some inland person to spell such words as 
"yacht" or " tarpaulin," so it is hard to get her at- 
tention. Besides she does not like explanations, and 
when she does listen, they must be very clear, with- 



The New Etiquette 307 

out the entangling mysteries of humour, for which 
she has a disHke, and, I think, a Httle fear, scenting 
ridicule. People have no right to bore others by talk- 
ing about their children, but I will say this. To know 
our dear girl is to know her mind, which is a 
shadowless pool, under a cloudless sky, with not a 
tree within a hundred miles of its borders. The blue 
of Janet's eye is the blue of a winter's sky, yet devoid 
of clouds. The blue of the eyes of Jane is the blue 
the moonlight makes when it falls on a frosty pane, 
and, if I were a painter like Monet, I should not 
paint Janet, but Jane. 

Now, with all the will in the world to '' conform," 
and to be an obedient parent, for I have always had 
an ambition not to mortify my own flesh and blood 
by my manners or my peculiarities, I feel myself 
cramped by the total exclusion from my conversa- 
tion of the word " ma'am." It is not possible to 
use it on my grandmother, whom Janet tells me a 
younger person might taper off on. Even to please 
the Impeccable Young Person, I will not upset the 
timid Jane by evoking the shades of one who cannot 
answer back. And opportunities of using it upon 
Alexandra — well, they are not frequent. It has 
therefore become a question of choice as to whether 
I am to go into domestic service, where I can have 
the opportunity of saying it all day long, or whether 
I will associate wholly with the other sex. But here 
I find myself in peril somewhat similar. I wonder 



3o8 The New Etiquette 

if I will make enemies or lose your esteem, if I tell 
you that where Jane and I were raised, we said 
'' Sir " ? I am told that where there is a great deal 
of form, there is little devotion. Jane and I said 
" Sir," as an outward mark of respect. Under its 
cover, we led lives of unbridled liberty and independ- 
ence. 

But as to the other suggestions, I did not see why 
I was too old to say '' woman " and " man," why I 
could not keep my seat, why I could not fold my 
hands. Behind my back a friend once said c^^me that 
I possessed a '* sweet reasonableness," tran^(5smg 
Matthew Arnold to do me honour. .,%. 

I would begin Sunday afternoon. And it li^ 
pened that an octogenarian cousin came upon that 
occasion, to pay his yearly visit. And when I, 
anxious not to insert notions of the importance of 
his sex into his head, while I insinuated my own 
superiority — when I remained like a sitting statue 
of .Siva in the Salle d'Antiquites d'Assyrie in the 
Louvre, he limped about for a chair, and finally, 
emitting a senile chuckle, said : "So the family 
rheumatism has overtaken you, I see; with the 

B 's after fort " In an instant, he would 

have named a year in the presence of one to whom 
the information would have excelled in melody 
seraphic strains. 

You remember that when, for fun, her two com- 
patriots called out at the dinner table : " Low 



The New Etiquette 309 

bridge!" the American duchess ducked her head. 
She had been — well, she had been a stewardess on 
a canal boat. So, when my relation uttered a wOrd, 
he was not permitted to finish. The new etiquette 
fell from the writer as a garment, as the shell from 
the quickened butterfly; those members, the lack of 
which caused the holocaust of the Spanish queen, 
were put into accelerated motion. The old gentle- 
man not only was received standing, he was ad- 
dressed as " Sir," and the idea that I should allude 
to his wife as a '' dear old woman " faded into thin 
air like the ghost of Hamlet's father when the glow- 
worm showed the matin to be near. 

Never mind. Better luck next time. " Think ! " 
I told my soul, " what a time it took you to learn to 
say " don't — you," and " at — all " ; how long 
to apply the word " cunning " to the Venus of 
Milo, " appealing" to the odour of a flower — how 
you suffered a sort of sea-sickness when you had to 
choose between " convincing," " pleasing," and 
" attractive," when you would praise. Remember 
how you declared that your feelings about " de — ah" 
resembled those of M. Lacour, when there was talk 
in the ^French Academy, of admitting the verb 
" baser.'' " Eh hien, messieurs, mais s'il entre je 
sors," " But at least you can master the third rule, 
and not shake hands." The opportunity to take this 
encouraging advice was close upon me. An em- 
barrassed country youth, but one who, like the 



3IO The New Etiquette 

young man in the Bible, had great possessions, 
called on us the very next day. He had learned 
his manners from his mamma, who had learned 
hers at the Female Academy which had turned out 
the polished Jane and the author. Therefore, mean- 
ing no possible disrespect, he held out a limp, per- 
spiring hand in greeting. . . I believe you have had 
the pleasure of reading, a few pages back, an edify- 
ing essay on the advantages of '' now," the felicity 
of the present moment. Should I take my own 
medicine swallow my own bitter draught? Of 
course if I refused his hand, I must make it up to 
him by an engaging and welcoming smile. I must, 
in a word, like properly brought-up young ladies, 
say ''no," and look "yes"; but is one among you 
under the impression that the person who is holding 
out his hand is in aUy condition to think of anything 
but what to do with it, if no answering pressure meets 
it, he knows very little about human feelings. If you 
have ever tried it, you won't think it an easy thing 
to get back a hand you have extended, even though 
it was done by your own volition. For a full 
minute we looked at each other, and from the ex- 
pression of agony that distorted the features of 
that young man, I inferred that to move a limb par- 
alysed from birth would have been play to it. He, 
in the attitude of a mendicant, I ignoring his peti- 
tion, and yet uttering complimentary and insincere 
words of welcome — that's the picture. 



The New Etiquette 311 

If ever, in after life, that young man hears an- 
other man spoken of in terms of contempt because 
'' he can't put his hand in his pocket," I am sure 
that he will be ready to defend him. He will say — 
** no more difficult task was ever given to mortal 
man." 

And the outcome of this effort to preserve '' good 
form " ? Well, these are hard times, to speak 
plainly, and a country person with a plantation on 
the Eastern Shore may possess private virtues that 
offset ignorance of social rules. But though Janet 
was not cold and Jane was gushing, " the tender 
grace of a day that is dead " is not more likely to 
return to our parlour than our schoolfellow's boy. 
I was going to say '' touch of a vanished hand," 
but I remembered that it was on " hand," we floun- 
dered. The hand was all there, but the touch was 
not. 

Now an ignorant person would think that the 
new etiquette had been pretty well defined by these 
rules. But they are, after all, only examples of the 
underlying principle that governs it. The idea is 
this. The personal note must be eliminated. It is 
impolite to oppose the will of another. It is polite 
to take for granted that the acts of our fellow-beings 
are regulated by calm judgment and high thinking. 
But we will see more results of these plausible rules, 
so misleading in their simplicity. 

In old times, you remember, when a visitor said 



312 The New Etiquette 

she must go, we used the coaxing formula, " Do 
stay.'^ If she dedined our invitation for a coming 
function, excusing herself on the score of her deli- 
cate health, or " I never go anywhere," we put up 
the bait in this guise : " Don't you think you can 
kind of come? " If the gentleman in the street-car 
offered one a seat, we smiled and ventured, '' You 
are very kind," and were there a tempting morsel, 
and we the host, we were not ashamed to ignore the 

to-be-expected — *' No, thank you, delicious, but " 

We slipped it on the guest's plate with a tender 
glance of understanding. 

Now, the new etiquette is a very beautiful, but 
a very subtle thing. At one time a man stood with 
his hat off in the elevator, were a woman present. 
Now it is the height of delicate civility for him 
to keep it on, that she may understand that he has 
effaced himself by ignoring her presence. When 
he gives up his place in the tram, he is performing 
so splendid an act of self-abnegation that any recog- 
nition of his conduct would be displeasing to his 
high, altruistic spirit. When he makes this sacrifice, 
he does not do so for the sake of any individual 
woman, or indeed for womanhood at all, but for 
his own sake, and for the fulfilment of an ideal. He 
does it as the Buddhists pray, for the reflex influence. 
Some refined persons go even further. They say 
that as it is painful to feel one's self under obligation, 
he who has abandoned his seat for the pleasure of 



The New Etiquette 313 

another is made uncomfortable, does she acknowl- 
edge the kindness. 

When the visitor says, " I must go," the truly- 
polite person will do everything to facilitate her 
desire, run and open the door; even, on occasion, 
give her a gentle push. The idea is, you see, that 
every sane person knows her own mind, and if she 
says a thing, means it. 

But it takes elderly people some time to adapt 
themselves to this somewhat startling admission, 
and they are constantly complaining of the neglect 
and lack of cordiality on the part of their friends. 
It was our province lately to bind up the wounds 
of an octogenarian who had been violently ejected 
from the front door of an old but fashionable friend, 
to whom she had gone with the intention of passing 
the day. The ejection followed the perfectly under- 
stood feint of tying her bonnet strings, on the part 
of the decayed female. When another survivor of 
the wreck of the nineteenth century bent his aged 
back and picked up a young woman's parasol, he 
was offended because she received it with a stony 
stare. He did not understand the highest form of 
politeness. When another, with florid tastes, de- 
layed the gratification of his appetite for curried 
chicken, as children save the raisins in a cake for the 
last, and said, '' N-o — thank you," he was paralysed 
with disappointment and baffled desire, when the 
coveted portion was instantly removed. 



314 The New Etiquette 

But the most melancholy of all lessons, and 
learned at the knees of a stern teacher, was that 
acquired by a dear girl, ignorant of current usage. 
She had been brought up by fossils who told her 
that it was indelicate to accept an offer of marriage 
the first time of asking. Men, in the opinion of 
these left-overs, are impulsive creatures; and a be- 
coming gown, a pose in the moonlight, a toothsome 
supper, have been responsible for the utterance of 
compromising words which, later, they have re- 
pented of. To have caught him on the fly would — 
to these kind souls — have looked like taking advan- 
tage. So the poor thing, loving dearly, and having 
the most thrifty desire to be comfortably settled, 
looked — she assured Jane and me that she only looked 
— '' No," and waited to be urged. Alas ! she was 
taken at her look. '' Her will," said her stern and 
upright lover, '' is my law. Would you have me 
doubt her perfect judgment, her utter comprehension 
of herself?" 

Then that personal note, which every well-bred 
person will avoid striking. To be sure, there are 
things to be said in favour of shunning it. The sun- 
flower never turned its face to its god with more 
regularity than the writer of this confession to re- 
marks, for the sake of conversation, addressed to 
strangers about their own kin-people or their own 
affairs. I recollect once giving a mother the details 
of the runaway of her own daughter, with current 



The New Etiquette 315 

gossip on the subject, and once I had the satisfac- 
tion of telHng an author exactly what I thought of 
his last book. As I like only one sort of book, the 
opinion was more disciplinary than flattering to him 
that heard it. But, as we say when we want to be 
particularly non-committal, '' There is a good deal 
to be said on both sides " of this question of eHmi- 
nating personalities. Unfortunately, Janet's mamma 
committed the new rule to memory just before tak- 
ing ship from Cherbourg. The weather was rough. 
Her steamer chair was lashed to that of a stranger 
whose accent, when she asked for bouillon, was so 
cosmopolitan that it was impossible to place her. 
Our proximity (do you recall the situation, your 
sympathies are at once enlisted), was that to which 
the intimacy of the Siamese twins was a bowing 
acquaintance. Not to speak at all would have solved 
the problem, but, reader, we were women. For 
seven days were we joined together in indissoluble 
union, and evidently she had a Janet of her own: 
for she knew as well as I, I saw by revealing signs, 
the dictum, ''No questions asked, no unsolicited in- 
formation given." To form an idea of what that 
voyage was, would be difficult even to you, of trained 
and brilliant imagination. We assumed certain 
things — that both could read and write — and, I 
make no apologies, it leaked out that both had had 
peritonitis; and we inferred that each had been to 
Europe, and both were going home. With this 



3i6 The New Etiquette 

slender furnishing, we passed the interminable hours. 
People are always pooh-poohing Jane's and my 
grievances, but I should like a scoffer to tell me how 
long she could keep up a conversation on Henry 
James' last novels and the tendency of the age to 
materialism. At any rate, when I descended the 
gangway at New York, I asked the first man I met 
what his income was, and the first woman her age, 
and how much she paid for her long wrap. Such 
was the effect of the reaction. 

The philosopher, seeking for a cause of these 
changes in social usages, will attribute it to that 
passion for sincerity which is an obsession of the 
age. That desire to " get at the heart of things," 
that profound longing for simplicity and earnestness. 
To love perfectly is to believe perfectly, and he who 
would grant the highest happiness is he who would 
give that other his own will. If, as an illustration, 
you, at ninety, resign your seat in the street-car to 
a girl who is half-past nineteen, she should not take 
away the austerity of your sacrifice by rewarding 
you even with a smile. You are your own recom- 
pense. And again, to suspect you of the insincere 
and childish device of pretending to want to go, 
when you are really dying to stay, is to reflect on 
your adamant character for uprightness. And upon 
the solemn subject of matrimony — to show a sign of 
indecision is to be what Janet calls " unworthy." 

" A woman," said a New England maiden to 



The New Etiquette 317 

Jane, " should have made up her mind what she is 
going to do, long before the word is spoken." And 
though Jane, who has little control over her emo- 
tions, gasped, " The indelicate creature, as if any- 
body ever thought at all until they are obliged to — " 
the inexorable, speaking conscience went on — *' If 
the answer is to be ' No,' the word should never be 
spoken. No unmarried woman," continued the per- 
fect flower of womanhood, " should have to blush 
to say that she has received an offer. That she did 
receive it and is not married is a proof of her 
frivolity." 

Well, we live in strange, untrodden ways. I 
would give ten years, well, I would give ten years 
of John's life to see the outcome of it, but this I 
know — it is a serious thing to be taken at one's 
word. 



XXIX 

©rtginal Sin 

WE get attached to that to which we are 
accustomed. There was the prisoner of 
the Bastile, you know, who begged to go back, 
when Hberated from the place of his long du- 
rance. There was Miss Mitford, whose father 
was so disagreeable and exacting an old man that 
his death caused joyful congratulations to pour 
from the lips of his daughter's friends, but whose 
departure broke her heart. And it is the same sort 
of feeling, one of missing and bewilderment, that 
has sent Jane and me upon an extraordinary errand, 
— the search for original sin. For we had as well 
make no bones about it, but tell you simply and 
without circumlocution that this once useful and 
universal refuge from responsibility is lost. Some 
people say it is dead, others go so far as to assert 
that it never existed; but, whatever the theory, it 
has disappeared. And with it have gone a great 
deal of freedom and that calmness which the accept- 
ance of the inevitable brings. 

318 



Original Sin 319 

Now, as to original sin, we who believed in it 
rested upon it as a transparent fact. Let a person 
be created cross, selfish, quick-tempered, we did not 
expect the leopard to change his spots or the Ethio- 
pian his skin. Inherited vices, especially if they were 
of a bold and manly kind, we were pretty apt to preen 
ourselves on, in fact. People boasted of the " Smith 
pride," the '' Robinson implacability." Those who 
got into homicidal rages excused themselves with the 
indisputable announcement, '' I was born so." Of 
course in the Catechism we deplored original sin, but 
even theologians held on to it with tenacity. To be 
able to account for a vicious act or a selfish habit 
by putting the responsibility upon a distant female 
ancestor was not without its charm. Eve has been 
properly abused, but I would like to know what we 
should have done without her? ''Eve's daughter," 
"one of Eve's family," — you remember the poet 
Hood uses the expression to extenuate the act of a 
very beautiful young girl, making it rhyme with 
" clamily," — a hint his followers have not failed 
to crib when the situation demanded it. In fact, 
simple and unaffected as are the terms, they were 
worth pages of foolscap for the defence. 

Now, a sensible person would have supposed that 
with a broad breast like that of the universal mother 
to fall back on, people would have been content. 
But there have come along such opposite personal- 
ities as Froebel and Herbert Spencer who, with their 



320 Original Sin 

growing influence and their disposition to aggrandise 
human nature, have fairly driven our poor refuge 
out of society. Before the philosophers came, we 
used the familiar phrase, '^ Go see what the baby is 
doing and make him stop.'' But, with advanced 
learning, we know that baby came into the world 
perfectly good and trustworthy, and that the desire 
to interfere with him, and certainly the necessity 
for doing so, is not his fault. It is your fault and 
mine, and though evil is involuntary, it is not native, 
but acquired and a matter of education. The burden 
of responsibility, then, falls on his instructors. The 
dear mother of us all is purged of her responsibility, 
and her power to transmit evil. But, at what a cost ! 

It is quite true that since the '' myth of the 
garden," weak-minded mammas have used the ex- 
pression, when they would defend utterly indefens- 
ible offspring, " You stirred him up," or " You irri- 
tated him : naturally he is an angel." There is no 
novelty in this form of expression; but what they 
meant was, '' It is the active old Adam in you, his 
papa, and the latent old Adam in him, that is to 
blame." 

And, though I am not one to praise indiscrimi- 
nately, we have all noticed the patience with which 
the old-fashioned father put up with the extrav- 
agances in dress in wife or daughter. That early 
and instinctive feeling about clothes, which is one 
of Eve's most interesting characteristics, has had 



Original Sin 321 

its softening influence upon generations of male 
heads of families. They admitted that it was a long- 
inherited, primeval trait, and they called it original 
sin. 

Can anyone with a head on her shoulders wonder 
that when there was such a palm tree in the desert, 
such a rock in the storm to shelter us, we clung to 
it ; that we miss it, and that Jane and I are out this 
gay spring morning trying to find original sin, and 
if it is dead, to revivify it? 

For, without it and everything depending upon 
education, the child is an empty gourd, into which 
the parent and teacher may pour what they will. It 
is true that we cannot remodel baby's features by 
hanging up pictures of Venus or busts of Hermes 
before its blinking eyes. It is impossible to trans- 
form the small, uplifted nose of baby girl — a fea- 
ture which an uneducated person would describe 
as a gift transmitted directly from her papa's 
mamma — into a model of that of the Capitoline 
goddess. But, with our enlarged opportunities and 
our wider culture, we can make the mind and spirit 
of son and daughter what we will. Not only are 
our own props — Uncle Jacob's temper. Aunt Caro- 
line's selfishness — knocked from under us, and the 
responsibility put on the proper persons, but that 
greater weight of wet clay, represented by our heirs 
and heiressess, is dumped down in our backyard, 
and we are told to work our will on it, 



322 Original Sin 

But if we would make him '^ beautiful " and 
" happy " (I believe those are the modern terms for 
the old-fashioned ''good" and 'Movable"), we 
must not suggest to his groping intelligence anything 
unpleasant, fearful, exciting. The result of this sort 
of treatment is at your service, should you require 
proofs. The modern baby must not be crossed, and 
it may get its way by wrinkling up its little forehead 
in sign of displeasure, or it may push its parent away 
with its little hand. By these signs (so I read in a 
book, and my respect for literature leads me to 
believe it), a child of one week's experience in the 
world will show that the care it has received has not 
been the most intelligent, or the intention regard- 
ing it the most elevated. In fact, it is remarkable 
how soon the perfectly innocent and sinless beings 
catch on to present conditions. An infant of a few 
days will have scented out the doctrine that neither 
his ancestors nor original sin is responsible for his 
behaviour, but his system of education; with the 
result that I have seen a whole family thrown into a 
state of nervous prostration, from a sense of unful- 
filled duty toward him. For if these long-famous 
scapegoats are not to blame for him, are not his 
associates ? 

And then the new process is such a troublesome 
one. " Now I lay me," which has been the comfort 
of every child since its composition, has been re- 
modelled, because it contains the suggestion, " If I 



Original Sin 323 

should die before I wake." It must be said that the 
late edition is unpoetical, and more, it does not give 
the child the sense of security with which he used 
to shut his eyes in the dark, and know that whatever 
happened, he, the small egoist, was safe. And then, 
for the steps are too numerous and fatiguing to be 
described here, the mother must supervise every toy, 
book, picture that comes into the nursery. Bringing 
up a family on health food and boiled water is play 
in comparison ; for it is to be noted that, as long as 
people admitted the existence of original sin, many 
of its consequences entertained children, and even 
taught them to entertain themselves. Now they 
may not have a whip, or a Jack in the box, or even 
a Noah's ark, because the first suggests cruelty, the 
second fear, the third a flood — which I suppose is to 
be avoided as exciting controversy. They cannot 
be wild Indians or give warwhoops ; for the primeval 
savage was a ferocious, painted thing, and far from 
our present ideal of elegant simplicity. All fairy 
tales are tabooed as untrue or containing uncompli- 
mentary references to stepmothers; though why the 
real mother of a child should be expected to protect 
the reputation of her successful rival is one of the 
niceties of what people call ethical religion which 
an old-fashioned person finds it hard to accept. 
These fables, and others containing genii, dwarfs, 
the cutting off of heads, and the consequences of 
swallowing fish-bones, have their uses, says the 



324 Original Sin 

Parents' Revie-w with supernatural gravity : '' Jus- 
tice can be extracted from them, but not justice with 
mercy." 

And when the children leave their exhausted 
parents for half a day and go to school, the pictures 
on the walls of that building are subjected to the 
severest scrutiny. Jane and I have no reason to 
complain of this law, because of a confiscated 
** Daughter of Herodias," by Mantegna : the mur- 
deress sweeping along with majestic mien, the maid 
behind, holding her ghastly burden swathed in 
cloths, hangs on our drawing-room walls, the Scrip- 
tural history not being considered by the school- 
board an offset to the bad example. But one quite 
pities the imaginative child who is told to look at 
landscapes in which lambs are frisking, and made to 
read moral tales about machinery, instead of the 
inspiring deeds of Mr. Great-Heart and the Castle 
of Despair. 

And further: under the new system in which 
original sin has no place, the parent undergoes a 
good deal of vicarious suffering. A friend of mine 
tells me that when her boy — who, to speak without 
ceremony, is a greedy little creature — overtaxes his 
digestion, she goes on strict diet for a week. The 
child has not sinned: he is by nature sinless; it is 
from herself that he has gotten the idea of over- 
feeding. Another, when the pure heart of her boy 



Original Sin 325 

is excited, and he strikes his Httle sister, undergoes 
penance, and allows the cook to be impertinent. I 
suppose that it is a comfort to allow one's cook to 
be impertinent and not answer back, and at the same 
time know that one is incited from a high motive to 
accept the indignity. When Jane and I keep silent, 
it is with a loss of self-respect, but we are driven to 
submission from a dislike to doing our own work. 

I need not, however, pile on the difficulties of 
being a parent under present conditions. And, for 
once, husband and wife are agreed. No more can 
he taunt her, when the children misbehave, with 
" It is the woman, not I," nor can she refer to that 
well-known strain of cowardice and sheltering be- 
hind petticoats — to speak with poetical freedom of 
the fashions of the Garden. In thinking over this, 
one is almost wilhng to take off one's bonnet and 
give up the search for original sin, letting it stay 
lost, when one realises that these clods of earth can 
no longer with propriety be thrown. 

I would like to live a hundred years, and one of 
my reasons for desiring longevity is that I want to 
see the full effects of the present system of educa- 
tion. Mr. Spencer says that we must wait till we 
rid ourselves of our superstitions; but that the 
sense of moral obligation is transitory, and will 
diminish as soon as the sense of moralisation in- 
creases. In expectation of this interesting period, 



326 Original Sin 

a faint-hearted person with a full nursery would 
best, however, in our opinion, provide herself with 
a small bundle of twigs; and so, after all, in the 
cause of these degenerates, I will put on my bonnet, 
and go out to look for original sin. 



XXX 

Defunct Stn0 

IN the first place, insincerity is dead. In the theo- 
logical school in which two people I knew 
were matured it was thought that everybody, once 
in a lifetime, might tell one large, necessary false- 
hood, but they could only have one; people were 
warned to be very saving of it and not to waste 
it on any trifling matter. But a person could be too 
economical. In fact, Jane and I knew a lady, a very 
silent, thrifty woman, who, we have reason to be- 
lieve, kept her falsehood against the rainy day, until 
suddenly and without opportunity to use it, she died. 
I cite this example, because it is right to warn you 
that even in a matter like this you may be over-par- 
simonious. At one time I remember that when I 
wanted to praise a friend, and recommended her as 
" a rather dry person, but perfectly sincere,*' those 
present acquiesced to the remark as they would have 
assented had I professed a passion for the writing 
of Madame de Stael — that is, with a sort of icy 
sunshineness, by which it would be difficult to warm 
one's hands. In our new catechism, however, I have 

327 



328 Defunct Sins 

come to realise that fibbing is not only wrong, but 
a condescension, and that truth is the defiant way 
by which people intimate that they do not care to 
please. 

Now, I have been warned that I will make myself 
unpopular if I defend insincerity, and I do not in- 
tend to bring opprobrium upon myself, but I admit 
that living in the house with a very truthful person 
is calculated to wean one from rigid integrity of 
speech. For instance, there is Jane's brother James. 
His sentences are as devoid of ornament as a marble 
urn. His scrupulousness is carried even to politics, 
and he is afraid of saying too much, even before 
Jane and myself, who have no fixed principles and 
only know that genteel people in our part of the 
world vote for old General Stacy. 

" I have not made up my mind," he says, when an 
idle person asks if he is going down town, as if his 
mind were a feather-bed and required turning. For 
her part, Jane tells me she has ceased to make any 
engagements in his presence, lest he constrain her 
to keep them with his reproachful '' Did I not hear 
you promise ? " As for the writer of this chronicle, 
he has almost made a truthful woman of her, at 
least in his presence, for when she makes, for the 
peace of the household, the smallest dereliction from 
fact — such as "Do take some new asparagus!" 
when the vegetable is canned, or, to give authority to 
an unpopular piece of advice, prefaces with ** I read 



Defunct Sins 329 

in Lecky yesterday " a sentiment that emanated 

from her own active brain — she shrinks abashed 
from his questioning, serious gaze. James is, in 
fact, the sort of truth-teller who is prejudicial to 
truthfulness, and living with him has made me think 
it unwise to abolish the rules of society that were 
made for its protection. In order to spare the feel- 
ings of our fellow-beings, we should take the pains 
to learn by heart certain phrases to use when we 
would oil the rusty wheels. For instance, you 
should have at your fingers' end, ''Is it possible? " 
and '' Justly so," '' I am sure it can well be im- 
agined," "How thoughtful!" ''Fancy!" "Quite 
so," and a solemn " Very true ! " And I can tell you 
from experience that the dullest narration ever 
poured into human ears can be listened to without 
a blur on the armour of truth, if after it the listener 
has only presence of mind to sigh — " Could we 

only put ourselves in the places of others " The 

most tiresome guest that ever came and never willed 
to leave can be spirited over the threshold with a 
solicitous " Must you go? " and Jane has heard her 
blood relation accused of being a kleptomaniac by 
one with whom she thinks it policy to agree, and 
escaped with all her banners flying under the potent 
— " Fancy ! " I have a friend who tells me that she 

received with the bomb-proof " Thus we see " 

the intelligence that her brother-in-law, an inventive 
genius, who has discovered a religion of his own, 



33© Defunct Sins 

which he attends on Friday evenings with his hat 
on, to show his freedom from superstition, was seen 
to hand around the hat at a continental Church of 
England service last summer, his object being to 
ingratiate himself with an Anglican countess. And 
on another occasion, when told by the mother of 
seven plain daughters that the eldest had just re- 
jected her eighth offer oi marriage, Jane was 
all there with : "I am sure I can well under- 
stand it." 

And if there is a phrase you can use in all 
weather, it is " Quite so," although English friends 
tell me that " I know what you mean," presses it 
hard in utility. Of course one must not put these 
ejaculations in one's vest pocket and take out what 
comes first on top. Janet, with a touching con- 
fidence in a repertoire furnished by her mamma, 
said "Is it possible?" when a poet informed Her 
that his ode to " Myself " had been accepted in the 
Atlantic magazine. And when a youthful mamma, 
who is always being taken for her daughter's sister, 
and being embarrassed by people's asking " What 
young man were "you at the theatre with last 
night ? "^ — turned the battery of her eyes upon him 
and said, " Would you take that great fellow for 
my son ? " — then James, also secure in his mother's 
recipes, whipped out '* Quite so." But these dis- 
asters are the result of overweaning belief in the 
maternal mind. I can tell you that phrases bind the 



Defunct Sins 331 

lacerated vanity, if used with discretion, and take us 
long leaps over dusty places. 

Another extinct sin is eating and drinking. Now 
I do not approve of gluttony, but I like people to 
enjoy what is put before them. Alas for an old- 
fashioned idea of hospitality ! We were at a supper 
party the other night where terrapin was the plat 
d'honneur. But all the tall, broad-shouldered young 
men shook their heads. The dish was offered to 
a rosy youth — '' No, a bit seedy, stomach rowing 
me." The time was when that boy would have 
drank corrosive sublimate rather than allude to his 
digestion before that girl in pink who sat beside him. 
Another, quite as stalwart, made his supper of cold 
beef, without condiments. " All right now," he was 
good enough to tell us, " but the doctor thinks cold 
beef good for general tone." After these confes- 
sions of the most agreeable young men, the girls 
were not ashamed to admit to the most painful 
forms of disease, and with that lack of reserve which 
is an expression of the most exquisite refinement of 
thought, withheld nothing that rheumatism might 
not do to one, or that dyspepsia could not bring 
about. Finally, it would have been difficult to find 
anything in the menu that was not too bright and 
good for human nature's daily food. 

That freedom from reserve — I ought to praise it. 
And yet I am not always comfortable when it is 
practised. In old-fashioned novels people were on 



33^ Defunct Sins 

the brink of suicide because one of these passion- 
tossed souls could not speak the '' little word " 
which would explain all. Women faded and died 
from being married to still, silent men who loved 
them to distraction, but could only show it by scowl- 
ing at them or refusing to speak for days at a time. 

Do you not recollect a terrible tale called *' Mis- 
understood," where a child was a victim to this 
choking " dryness " ? Well, I had an example the 
other night of the opposite of reserve, and an in- 
disputable proof of what frankness will inspire 
people to do. The lady who sat next me reminded 
me of old times by the unquestioning way in which 
she ate her soft crabs, but I own to a little shudder 
when she said : " When one has very poor things to 
eat at home, one does so enjoy going out where one 
can get this sort of thing." 

Dear! dear! I thought of the Miss Tams, who 
have lived in our county ever since '65 on thirty- 
seven dollars a year, and how, when invited to 
partake of our homely viands, they draw up their 
heads and produce the appearance of having just 
dined on canvas-back ducks, and therefore reject 
roast beef as plebeian food. 

And then the lady with w'hom I looked over 
the photographs in the drawing-room, turned her 
clear eyes upon me and demanded — " Have you 
heard that my eldest brother has married a ' Busy 
Now ' girl ? The one at Adams' Express with the 



Defunct Sins 333 

blondine locks." Now, in this speech there was none 
of that uncandour which was the rotting log 'neath 
the social structure under which Jane and I first saw 
life, but for myself, I regret that decayed state of 
society. I prefer the time when such a piece of in- 
formation would have been communicated to me in 
a darkened room, the family of the brother in their 
watteau wrappers, the mother lying down, and all 
kept alive with cups of hot bouillon, while those 
most able to do so retailed each circumstance. And 
I should have liked to do my part, and in order to 
cheer the humiliated recall other mesalliances, mak- 
ing the hair of young persons present stand on end, 
while I mentioned the fact that the mamma of the 

indolent and exclusive Mrs. F had, at one 

period of her checkered career, sold cakes in the 
street, barefooted. I speak for one only, but I like 
better, in a word, the time when gossip was brought 
under a shawl at nightfall, and uncovered in the up- 
stairs sitting-room, with doors locked, and vows of 
secrecy. 

Another defunct sin is pretending to like what 
you do not like and whom you do not like, and I my- 
self agree with public opinion in doing away with 
this last insincerity. This, you remember, was the 
mistake Antonio made when he tried to be just, and 
it was what irritated Tasso when Leonora said: 
" Yet oft with respect he speaks of thee." The 
woman imagined that, did she repeat some civility 



334 Defunct Sins 

spoken by a man her lover did not like, she would 
make peace between them. Not so; " Even that 
disturbs me," said Tassoi; '' that seeming praise from 
him, 'tis actual blame." And we are apt to forget 
that the person whom we dislike heartily dilikes us, 
and that, while a great deal of love is wasted in this 
world, very little liking is. The animosity that my 
acquaintance excites in me I excite in him, and all 
either of us asks is, not to become friends, but to 
be let alone. People entertain antipathies for each 
other, but they are never one-sided. I have yet to 
hear a rattlesnake make an admiring remark about 
a lady, and indeed if we knew a mouse's opinion of 
her, I am afraid that there would be wounded sensi- 
bilities. 

About the other matter pretending to like what you 
do not like — there are words for and words against. 
Jane knew a lady, before the extinction of what we 
used to call politeness, who swallowed a little apple 
in which a small member of the reptilian species had 
taken up winter quarters. She feared that her re- 
fusal of the viand might cause mortification to her 
hostess. I myself have eaten not only one, but two 
saucers of ice cream, briny as the deep itself, in order 
to make the mind of my entertainer doubly sure that 
her dessert was in a perfect and enticing condition. 
But under the new regime, where *' silly reserve " is 
done away with, and beautiful truth spoken in its 
purity, I have had a member of the British aristoc- 



Defunct Sins 335 

racy allude to my tea as '' quite, quite nasty," and 
my mallard ducks were recommended as '' not so 
nasty as they look." 

But there are affectations that I can see die with- 
out a tear in my sympathetic orbs. For instance, in 
our day, pious people used to speak of money as 
" filthy lucre." I have heard a good man called 
*' that worshipper of Mammon." In these times we 
have come to a much truer estimate of money. The 
people who have the most of it care for it the least. 
Poor people are generally patient without it, and not 
even in the pulpit is it abused. Our own pastor's 
compliments to our great man, who is " blessed with 
this world's goods," are almost fulsome, and as to 
what he has promised him in a better world — if I 
were our great man, I should write them down in 
my notebook and keep him to them, when I was in 
need of them. 

Another defunct sin is characteristic of a past 
age. This is coquetry in any form. In those pre- 
historic times when girls dressed in white tarletan, 
with a few natural flowers in their hair, when they 
sang " The Last Rose of Summer," by ear, and went 
to church Sunday nights with young men, an en- 
gagement was a very romantic, mysterious affair. 
In the far South, there are still people alive who re- 
call instances of a respectable young woman being 
engaged to marry more than one young gentleman at 
a time. But coquetry, in the unsophisticated age, was 



336 Defunct Sins 

a mask to hide real feeling. On the eve of her wed- 
ding with a bridegroom she didn't mind pretending 
she cared for, since it was only pretense, she ac- 
cepted young Lochinvar, whom modesty had com- 
pelled her to feign to despise. 

Being engaged was the most exciting period of a 
man's life. Not the identity of the Man in the Iron 
Mask was a profounder secret. People no more 
dared refer to her betrothal to an engaged girl, than 
they dared to ask her whether she was wearing last 
summer's hat. The position of the fiance to this 
difficult person was that of Dives to Lazarus — ^be- 
tween them a great gulf was fixed, the lady, in the 
character of the saint, throwing over to him unsub- 
stantial civilities. Some men never got over calling 
their wives '' Miss Sally " or '' Cousin Lou," so 
long was the period of probation, and so stern the 
etiquette enforced. A delicately-minded female, 
when her trousseau was really ready, and her brides- 
maids asked, has been known to admit that she had 
some idea of getting married, but even to her 
maiden imagination she was never quite willing to 
own to whom. And when the final words were 
spoken, and the distracting creature really his, the 
captor breathed a long breath of gratified ambition. 

One summer, up in the New Hampshire hills, 
where wooded heights climb deep and steep into the 
blue sky and the breeze blows strong over the long, 
low fields, — where purple shadows lie all day long on 



Defunct Sins 337 

undulating slopes, and a brown brook rushes beneath 
intertwining elms, a certain couple was, notwith- 
standing all Nature's allurements, her successful 
rival in our interest. Up to eight o'clock one Sat- 
urday night, there were still hopeful people who 
were willing to risk their spare change on his getting 
away. He was little and red and had a small, weak 
chin; but he thought much of himself, and was 
precious of his health and clothes. The girl was 
half a dozen years older, big, had " fundamental 
ideas," walked ten miles before breakfast, and wore 
a scuff hat and short skirt. Her skin was leather- 
coloured, but, as it was her ambition to have it so, 
I don't see why we were as sorry for her as we were. 
. . To the most casual glance, she was the stronger 
force, but there was a single, compromising word 
which, after all, must be said by him. Would he 
say it ? During his six weeks in the mountains that 
young man had learned much. He had been 
brought face to face with a blank wall, his pursuer 
behind him. Would he throw up his arms ? . . One 
afternoon he broke the bonds of close and inevitable 
companionship, and went out in the rain. Alas, he 
had not reckoned upon the indifference to weather of 
a girl who wears her hat off her forehead, and is clad 
in an abbreviated waterproof corduroy. When 
they returned, the man who sat next us at table, — he 
was a vulgar creature and had laid a wager on the 
youth, — came running in as pale as death. " It's all 



338 Defunct Sins 

over with him," he spluttered; ''her mother's kiss- 
ing him on the piazza, and her Httle brother has his 
fishing rod and is caUing him ' Wilhe.' " 

The next morning, at breakfast, the fiancee was 
examining plans for " our house," cut from a cur- 
rent magazine, and having a confidential chat wdth 
the table maid, whose services she wished to secure 
in the capacity of second girl. The bridegroom, to 
whose stature his luck had not added a cubit, had 
left the gay and irresponsible society of his fellows 
at the bachelors' table, and was sandwiched between 
his fair one and her mamma. One heard " Willie," 
and again " Willie," above the clatter of the knives 
and forks. And presently the pretty little New 
York girl, who had been distant, gave him the 
friendliest of " good-mornings," and asked him to 
tie her shoe. He felt for his teeth — poor soul, they 
were all pulled. Happiness had not " burst upon 
him like a rainbow incomplete," like the happiness 
of Browning's lover, and even that master of flat- 
tery, — self-esteem, — could not have humbugged him 
into thinking that the result of a few words, mut- 
tered in the teeth of the storm, had been unexpected 
or doubtful. 

Now, we think that it is as natural for a nice girl 
to tell fibs about her engagement as it is for her to 
look in the glass to see if her hat is on straight, and 
it is as hard to own that she is in love as to tell ex- 
actly who made her winter suit. There was a time 



Defunct Sins 339 

when they walked together, hand in hand, down 
Love Lane in the cool twilight; not even the little 
birds in the green hedge knew their secret ; but they 
saw it, shining in each other's eyes. The mystery, 
the suspense, the delayed hope, even the sharp pang 
of doubt — the doubt of self — were there. And they 
have come back to many of us across the years, a 
bitter-sweet fragrance, blowing, perhaps, over the 
fields of asphodel. Would you, instead, turn on 
the electric light and open doors and windows? 
Madam, I admit that you have buried the light fair 
thing Coquetry, but Sentiment mourns at her grave. 
I don't suppose an honourable person would have 
done it, but, devoured with curiosity to see how 
young people really do act toward each other nowa- 
days, Jane and I one afternoon got behind a curtain 
and listened to a conversation between one of Janet's 
college friends and a young man who was calling on 
her. . . There they sat, looking at each other with 
calm directness. On his part was a sort of chill 
seriousness, not uncivil, but guarded as though he 
had in his mind the mortifying statistics of the State 
of Massachusetts, where there is a preponderance, 
similar to that in Scripture, of seven females to one 
male. . . We really heard very little of their talk 
because, with a scrupulousness every woman will 
understand, having deliberately placed ourselves in 
temptation, Jane and I put our fingers in our ears — 
well, in one ear — and heard what we could not help 



340 Defunct Sins 

hearing; but we did gather that his sentences began 
with '' Providence permitting," while she, with beau- 
tiful unreserve, discussed what one could safely eat 
in hot weather. . . Once a reference was made to 
Byron, which woke up Jane's slumbering con- 
science and made her suspect that something would 
now be said that it would strain her sensitive honour 
to listen to. She made a movement to relinquish 
our perilous joy. But the young man, like Barnes 
Newcome, evidently '' thought small potatoes of the 
poetry of the affections." What he said of the 
author of " Childe Harold " was not of a sentimen- 
tal nature. He simply complained that Byron con- 
veyed little information, and that the topography of 
the classic was unreliable. . . We would have been 
pleased had nature finally triumphed over education, 
and had these young people, who were really con- 
genial, talked nonsense and dreamed dreams. But 
the clock struck, and the young man, timed by his 
unswerving repeater, shook hands with the nice little 
boy in pink silk and chiffon, and went off to keep 
an appointment with himself. 

" I wonder that we do as well as we do," said Jane 
grimly; " girls do get married nowadays. We got 
invitations to a wedding six months ago." 

Is it in the power of a sensitive person to attend 
one more funeral ? In the Middle Ages people were 
as proud of their bloodthirstiness, their license, their 
unrestraint, as we now are ashamed of these qual- 



Defunct Sins 341 

ities. Contrasting the amiability of the present 
with the frankness and outspokenness of the past, 
I do not see why we should not give ourselves airs 
innumerable over our fathers and mothers. Few 
well-bred people nowadays indulge in personalities. 
It is not only considered ill-natured, but bad form, to 
ridicule the peculiarities of our acquaintances, and 
an honourable being would never say, in the absence 
of a friend, what she would not eagerly declaim in 
her presence. 

" In old times," says Mr. Andrew Lang, who 
lives a good deal in the past, " poaching was poach- 
ing, even when performed from the purest and most 
soulful motives, and it unluckily led to those rather 
vulgar and distressing chronicles that fill the police 
records." But in the world of to-day a veil of the 
purest, the opaquest white is laid over the faults of 
our acquaintances. We either ignore them or we 
gently shroud them. We talk about environment. 
The other day I heard Jane, at the sacrifice of pat- 
riotism, excusing, on the score of climate, a coloured 
person who had yielded to the dictates of passion 
and inflicted a mortal blow upon the forehead of her 
incompetent and provoking husband. " You can- 
not expect as much self-restraint in a native of Vir- 
ginia as in a native of Maine," Jane explained. 

In old times, people had patience with children- 
No w we " respect them " and listen to their prat- 
tlings as if they were the rather incoherent mutter- 



342 Defunct Sins 

ings of an imprisoned god. '' Youth must be 
served," says the decadent poet. Well, it always 
has been served, but we called it spoiling, and apolo- 
gised with the fatuous remark that deceived nobody : 
" That child is not well." 

I suppose that it is a sort of self-indulgence to look 
back on the time from which we have emerged, and 
that it IS tempting the return of vices to revert to 
them mentally. But for once, I shall review that 
period when people spoke their minds. 

In those haunting days, did Letitia coquet, or was 
Ann of a fluid imagination, we discussed these 
foibles around a tea table where, to be frank, her ab- 
sence gave us freedom. Did dear Clarissa perform 
in secret what the Japanese ladies do in public, and 
-use her face as the artist uses a white wall, — that 
is, as a surface to decorate, — we talked about her 
between sips of tea, deplored her vanity, and were 
young persons present, as a moral lesson, we added 
ten years to her age. Were we guests together at 

a country house, and were the B 's unaware of 

that distinguishing family trait that set the D 's 

above their kind, we warned them that it were better 
to wear all their small jewels. I am sure that no- 
body thought the worse of the D family for 

the idiosyncrasy which compelled them to appropri- 
ate little valuables that, speaking strictly, were not 
their own, but we did not mind putting strangers 
on their guard. Had a schoolfellow, from humble 



Defunct Sins 343 

beginnings, wiggled her way into prominence, we 
did not, from high-mindedness, refrain from remark- 
ing to others who, not sharing her social triumphs, 
were in a mood receptive to hear it — that we knew 
Sally Chase in the days when she, so to- speak, gave 
lessons on the melodeon. 

Not that we were without a sense of the pro- 
prieties. Timid people took precautionary meas- 
ures with Providence, and, to avert the evil conse- 
quences of sins against charity, prefaced a bit of 

gossip with — " You will be sorry to hear " 

But it would not be frank did I add that sorrow 
went hand-in-hand with incredulity. It was not 
displeasing to good people to admit the existence of 
failings in others. . . And if universal whitewash- 
ing was not exactly our employment, at least we did 
not excuse ourselves with the well-sounding " I love 
people, I am so intensely interested in my kind 
that I must dissect them. I am indeed a student of 
human nature and pull my friends to pieces as a bot- 
anist separates a flower." No, we called things by 
their names. We shrieked what we would not now 
whisper behind closed doors. There was a sort of 
gossip going about, but I am inclined to think that 
free speech was a safety-valve, for we were passion- 
ately sympathetic, even to the next-door neighbour, 
whose very name it is our glory now not to know; 
and in time of distress we flooded the stranger at 
our gates with help and comfort. 



344 Defunct Sins 

Now it is conceded that criticism is dead, but are 
we really kinder than we used tO' be? Is this apolo- 
getic attitude toward all crimes, all opinions, the 
result of prudence or indifference, or of a height- 
ened morality? Society was certainly a censor of 
morals, and people were in wholesome fear of trial 
at her terrible tribunal. She was a dreadful figure — 
the old lady in the stiff black silk and lace cap. She 
knew the details of our private lives, and laid them 
bare. She did not define sin as an illness or crime 
or as the result of underfeeding. She never called 
yesterday to-morrow. But she made us behave. 

You, of course, know what people mean when they 
say — of hopelessly incompatible natures — '' The 
wider the divergence the greater the unity." But 
this mystic phrase would have been received by the 
censor in the black silk with a stiff '* Nonsense ! " 

And for a word of private opinion. Now and 
then when Jane and I have been out to dinner, and 
have been fed on mental chicken and rice, while the 
characters of our friends were served up boiled in 
syrup and tenderly sprinkled with confectioner's 
sugar, and — well, we have yawned and sighed for 
vinegar and spice. " Perfection is unloved," says 
the philosopher, " in this imperfect world, where for 
imperfection there is instant sympathy." 

To be sure, if you really cannot be perfectly ami- 
able at all times, there is a remedy. If you sincerely 
disapprove of the person who uses safety-pins to 



Defunct Sins 345 

attach her children's dresses in the back, being too 
lazy to sew on buttons; if you think it your duty to 
warn your fellow human beings against the char- 
acter of one who does not pay her dressmaker, and 
if you would yet escape a suit for damages, why, I 
take pleasure in presenting you with an effective 
means of disparaging these ladies among your com- 
mon acquaintances. Speak of their cleverness, their 
good manners, their erudition, their fine complexion, 
the way their heads are set on their shoulders. The 
more highly you extol them the more willing your 
audience will be to accept with credulity anything 
you may have to say against these ladies. At any 
moment — after this; — you may slip into the cask the 
drop of wild dew which will ferment the whole mass 
of honey. A woman of average capacity can praise 
another woman out of the patience of her best 
friend. 

In reading over this list of defunct sins, I note 
with the hypersensitiveness of the age the slightest 
possible soupgon of acerbity. I seem to regret that 
these evils no longer exist, but I do myself injustice. 
I am really glad that they are dead, but, as a mother 
becomes attached to her mentally inferior child, I 
am simply trying to help octogenarians adjust them- 
selves to living without them. 



OCT 1 1903 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



